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AYhat I Know of Faeming: 



A SERIES OF 



BRIEF AND PLAm EXPOSITIONS 



Practical Agriculture 

AS AN ART BASED UPON SCIENCE: 
By HOSr^CJEr^PtEELEY. 

] K "/ know 

That where the spade is despest driven, 
The best fruits grow." 

John G. Whittier. 

NEW YORK: 

G. W. Carleto7i & Co., Publishers. 

[sold by the tribune association.] 
mdccglxxi. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

HORACE GREELEY, 
at the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 

THE MAN OF OUR AGE, 

WHO SHALL MAKE THE FIRST PLOW PROPELLED BY 

STEAM, 

OR OTHER MECHANICAL POWER, WHEREBY NOT LESS THAN 

TEN ACRES PER DAY 

SHALL BE THOROUGHLY PULVERIZED TO A 

DEPTH OF TWO FEET, 

AT A COST OF NOT MORE THAN TWO DOLLARS PER ACRE, 
THIS WORK IS ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED BY 



THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS BY CHAPTERS. 



PAGE 

I. Will Farming Pay ? 13 

II. Good and Bad Husbandry 18 

III. Where to Farm 23 

IV. Preparing to Farm 29 

V. Buying a Farm 34 

VI. Laying off a Farm ; Pasturing 89 

VII. Trees ; Woodlands ; Forests 44 

VIII. Growing Timber ; Tree-Planting 49 

IX. Planting and Growing Trees 56 

X. Draining ; My Own 62 

XI. Draining Generally 69 

XII. Irrigation ; Means and Ends 74 

, XIII. Possibilities of Irrigation 79 

XIV. Plowing, Deep or Shallow 85 

XV. Plowing, Good and Bad 91 

XVI. Thorough Tillage 96 

XVII. Commercial Fertilizers — Gypsum 102 

XVIII. Alkalis^ Salt, Ashes, Lime 107 

XIX. Soils and Fertilizers 112 

XX. Bones, Phosphates, Guano 118 

XXI. Muck— How to Utilize It 124 

XXIL Insects; Birds 129 

XXIII. About Tree-Planting 134 

XXIV. Fruit-Trees— The Apple 139 

XXV. More about Apple-Trees 145 

XXVI. Hay and Hay-Making 150 

XXVII. Peaches, Pears, Cherries, Grapes 156 

XXVIII. Grain-Growing— East and West 162 

XXIX. Esculent Roots— Potatoes 170 

XXX. Roots— Turnips, Beets, Carrots 178 



VI CONTENTS. 

XXXI. The Farmers' Calling 183 

XXXII. A Lesson of To-day 189 

XXXIII. Intellect in Agriculture 195 

XXXIV. Sheep and Wool-Growing 200 

XXXV. Accounts in Farming 207 

XXXVI. Stone on a Farm 212 

XXXVII. Fences and Fencing 219 

XXXVIII. Agricultural Exhibitions 225 

XXXIX. Science in Agriculture 231 

XL. Farm Implements 237 

XLI. Steam in Agriculture 241 

XLII. Co-operation in Farming 248 

XLIII. Farmers' Clubs 254 

XLIV. Western Irrigation 260 

XLV. Sewage 266 

XL VI. More of Irrigation 274 

XLVII. Undeveloped Sources of Power 280 

XLVIII. Rural Depopulation 286 

XLIX. Large and Small Farms 292 

L. Exchange and Distribution 297 

LI. Winter Work 303 

LII. Summing up 308 



PREFACE. 



Men have written wisely and usefully, in illustration and 
aid of Agriculture, from the platform of pure science. Ac- 
quainted with the laws of vegetable growth and life, they 
so expounded and elucidated those laws that farmers appre- 
hended and profitably obeyed them. Others have written, 
to equally good purpose, who knew little of science, but were 
adepts in practical agriculture, according to the maxims and 
usages of those who have successfully followed and dignified 
the farmer's calling. T rank with neither of these honored 
classes. My practical knowledge of agriculture is meager, 
and mainly acquired in a childhood long bygone ; while, of 
science, I have but a smattering, if even that. They are 
right, therefore, who urge that my qualifications for writmg 
on agriculture are slender indeed. 

I only lay claim to an invincible willingness to be made 
wiser to-day than I was yesterday, and a lively faith in the 
possibility — nay, the feasibility, the urgent necessity, the 
imminence — of very great improvements in our ordinary deal- 
ings with the soil. I know that a majority of those who 

would live by its tillage feed it too sparingly and stir it too 

1 



VIU PKEFACE. 

slightly and grudgingly, I know that we do too little for it, 
and expect it, thereupon, to do too much for us. I know 
that, m other pursuits, it is only work thoroughly well done 
that is liberally compensated; and I see no reason why farm- 
ing should prove an exception to this stern but salutary law. 
I may be, indeed, deficient in knowledge of what constitutes 
good farming, but not in faith that the very best farming is 
that which is morally sure of the largest and most certain 
reward. 

I hope to be generally accorded the merit of having set 
forth the little I j^retend to know in language that few can 
fail to understand. I have avoided, so far as I could, the use 
of terms and distinctions unfamiliar to the general ear. The 
little I know of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, &c., I have kept 
to myself; since whatever I might say of them would be use- 
less to those already acquainted with the elementary truths 
of Chemistry, and only perplexing to others. If there is a 
paragraph in the following jDages which will not be readily 
and fully understood by an average school-'boy oi" fifteen 
years, then I have failed to make that paragraph as simple 
and lucid as I intended. 

Many farmers are dissuaded from following the sugges- 
tions of writers on agriculture by the consideration of ex- 
pense. They urge that, though men of large wealth may 
(perhaps) profitably do what is recommended, their means 
are utterly inadequate : they might as well be urged to work 



TREFACE. IX 

their oxen in a silver yoke with gold bows. I have aimed to 
commend mainly, if not uniformly, such improvements only 
on our grandfathers' husbandry as a farmer worth $1,000, or 
over, may adopt — not all at once, but gradually, and from 
year to year. I hope I shall thus convince some farmers 
that draining, irrigation, deep plowing, heavy fertilizing, 
&c., are not beyond their power, as so many have too 
readily presumed and pronounced them. 

That I should say very little, and that little vaguely, of 
the breeding and raising of animals, the proper time to sow 
or plant, &c., &c,, can need no explanation. By far the 
larger number of those whose days have mainly been given 
to farming, know more than I do of these details, and are 
better authority than I am with regard to them. On the 
other hand, I have traveled extensively, and not heedlessly, 
and have seen and pondered certain broader features of the 
earth's improvement and tillage which many stay-at-home 
cultivators have had little or no opportunity to study or 
even observe. By restricting the topics with which I deal, 
the probability of treating some of them to the average 
farmer's profit is increased. 

And, whatever may be his judgment on this slight work, 
I Icnow that, if I could have perused one of like tenor half a 
century ago, when I was a patient worker and an eager reader 
in my father's humble home, my subsequent career would 
have been less anxious and my labors less exhausting than 



X PKEFACE. 

tliey have been. Could I then have caught but a glimpse of 
the beneficent possibilities of a farmer's life — could I have 
realized that he is habitually (even though blindly) dealing 
with problems which require and reward the amplest knowl- 
edge of Nature's laws, the fullest command of science, the 
noblest efforts of the human intellect, I should have since 
pursued the peaceful, unobtrusive round of an enthusiastic 
and devoted, even though not an eminent or fortunate, tiller 
of the soil. Even the little that is unfolded in the ensuing 
pages would have sufficed to give me a fur larger, truer, 
nobler conception of what the farmer of moderate means 
might and should be, than I then attained. I needed to 
realize that observation and reflection, study and mental 
acquisition, are as essential and as serviceable in his pursuit 
as in others, and that no man can have acquired so much 
general knowledge that a farmer's exigencies will not afford 
scope and use for it all. I abandoned the farm, because I 
fancied that I had already perceived, if I had not as yet 
clearly comprehended, all there was in the farmer's calling ; 
whereas, I had not really learned much more of it than a 
good plow-horse ought to understand. And, though great 
progress has been made since then, there are still thousands 
of boys, m this enlightened age and conceited generation, 
who have scarcely a more adequate and just conception of 
agriculture than I then had. If I could hope to reach even 
one m eveiy hundred of this class, and induce him to pon- 



PREFACE. , XI 

der, impartially, the contents of this slight volume, I know 
that I shall not have written it in vain. 

We need to mingle more thought with our work. Some 
think till their heads ache intensely ; others work till their 
backs are crooked to the semblance of half an iron hoop ; 
but the workers and the thinkers are apt to be distinct 
classes ; whereas, they should be the same. Admit that it 
has always been thus, it by no means follows that it always 
should or shall be. In an age when every laborer's son may 
be fairly educated if he will, there should be more fruit 
gathered from the tree of knowledge to justify the magnifi- 
cent promise of its foliage and its bloom. I rejoice in the 
belief that the graduates of our common schools are better 
ditch- diggers, when they can no otherwise employ them- 
selves to better advantage, than though they knew not how 
to read ; but that is not enough. If the untaught peasantry 
of Russia or Hungary grow more wheat jDer acre than the 
comparatively educated farmers of the United States, our 
education is found wanting. That is a vicious and defective 
if not radically false mental training which leaves its subject 
no better qualified for any useful calling than though he were 
unlettered. But I forbear to pursue this ever-fruitful theme. 

I look back, on this day completing my sixtieth year, over 
a life, which must now be near its close, of constant efl'ort to 
achieve ends whereof many seem in the long retrospect to 
have been transitoiy and unimportant, however they may 



XU PREFACE. 

have loomed upon my vision when in their immediate pres- 
ence. One achievement only of our age and countiy — the 
banishment of human chattelhood from our soil — seems now 
to have been worth all the requisite efforts, the agony and 
bloody sweat, through which it was accomplished. But an- 
other reform, not so palpably demanded by justice and hu- 
manity, yet equally conducive to the well-being of our race, 
presses hard on its heels, and insists that we shall accord it 
instant and earnest consideration. It is the elevation of Labor 
from the plane of drudgery and servility to one of self-respect, 
self-guidance, and genuine independence, so as to render the 
human worker no mere cog in a vast, revolving wheel, whose 
motion he can neither modify nor arrest, but a partner in the 
entei'prise which his toil is freely contributed to promote, a 
sharer in the outlay, the risk, the loss and gain, which it 
involves. This end can be attained through the training of 
the generation who are to succeed us to observe and reflect, 
to live for other and higher ends than those of present sensual 
gratification, and to feel that no achievement is beyond the 
reach of their wisely combined and ably self-directed efforts. 
To that part of the generation of farmers just coming upon the 
stage of responsible action, who have intelligently resolved 
that the future of American agriculture shall evince decided 
and continuous improvement on its past, this little book is 
respectfully commended. h. g. 

Mw York, I'eb.S, ISIl. 



WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



I. 

WILL FARMING- PAY? 



I coMMEN"CE mj essays with this question, because, 
when I urge the superior advantages of a rural life, I 
am often met by the objection that Fanning does fCt 
j^dy. That, if true, is a serious matter. Let us con- 
sider : 

I. do not understand it to be urged that the farmer 
who owns a large, fertile estate, well-fenced, well- 
stocked, with good store of effective implements, 
cannot live and thrive by farming. "What is meant 
is, that he who has little but two brown hands to de- 
pend upon cannot make money, or can make very 
little, by farming. 

1 think those who urge this point have a very in- 
adequate conception of the difficulty encountered by 
every poor young man in securing a good start in 
life, no matter in what pursuit. I came to New-York 
when not quite of age, with a good constitution, a 
fair common-school education, good health, good hab- 
its, and a pretty fair trade — (that of printer.) I think 

(13) 



14 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

mj outfit for a campaign against adverse fortune was 
decidedly better than the average ; yet ten long years 
elapsed before it was settled that I could remain here 
and make any decided headway. Meantime, I drank 
no liquors, used no tobacco, attended no balls or other 
expensiye entertainments, worked hard and long 
whenever I could find work to do, lost less than a 
month altogether by sickness, and did very little in 
the way of helping others. I judge that quite as 
many did worse than I as did better ; and that, of 
the young lawyers and doctors who try to establish 
themselves here in their professions, quite as many 
earn less as earn more than their bare board during 
the first ten years of their struggle. 

John Jacob Astor, near the close of a long, dili- 
gent, prosperous career, wherein he amassed a large 
fortune, is said to have remarked that, if he were to 
begin life again, and had to choose between making 
his first thousand dollars with nothing to start on, or 
with that thousand making all that he had actually 
accumulated, he w^ould deem the latter the easier 
task. Depend upon it, young men, it is and must be 
hard work to earn honestly your first thousand dol- 
lars. The burglar, the forger, the blackleg (whether 
he play with cards, with dice, or with stocks), may 
seem to have a quick and easy way of making a 
thousand dollars ; but whoever makes that sum hon- 
estly, with nothing but his own capacities and ener- 
gies as capital, does a very good five-years' work, and 
may deem himself fortunate if he finishes it so soon. 



WILL FARMING PAY? . 15 

♦I tia/ce known men do better, even at farming. I 
recollect one who, with no capital but a good wife 
and four or "five hundred dollars, bought (near Boston) 
a farm of two hundred mainly rough acres, for $2,500, 
and paid for it out of its products within the next five 
years, during which he had nearly doubled its value. 
I lost sight of him then ; but I have not a doubt that, 
if he lived fifteen years longer and had no very bad 
luck, he was worth, as the net result of twenty years' 
effort, at least $100,000. But this man would rise at 
four o'clock of a winter morning, harness his span of 
horses and hitch them to his large market-wagon 
(loaded over night), drive ten miles into Boston, un- 
load and load back again, be home at fair breakfast- 
time, and, hastily swallowing his meal, be fresh as a 
daisy for his day's work, in which he would lead his 
hired men, keeping them clear of the least danger of 
falHng asleep. Such men are rare, but they still ex- 
ist, proving scarcely anything impossible to an in- 
domitable will. I would not advise any to work so 
unmercifully ; I seek only to enforce the truth that 
great achievements are within the reach of whoever 
will pay their price. 

An energetic farmer bought, some twenty-five years 
ago, a large grazing farm in Northern Vermont, con- 
sisting of some 150 acres, and costing him about 
$3,000. He had a small stock of cattle, which was 
all his land would carry ; but he resolved to increase 
that stock by at least ten per cent, per annum, and 
to so improve his land by cultivation, fertilizing, 



16 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

clover, &c., that it would amply carry that increase. 
Fifteen years later, he sold out farm and stock for 
$45,000, and migrated to the "West. I did not under- 
stand that he was a specially hard worker, but only 
a good manager, who kept his eyes wide open, let 
nothing go to waste, and steadily devoted his ener- 
gies and means to the improvement of his stock and 
his farm. 

"Walking one day over the farm of the late Prof. 
Mapes, he showed me a field of rather less than ten 
acres, and said, " I bought that field for $2,400, a 
year ago last September. There was then a light 
crop of corn on it, which the seller reserved and took 
away. I underdrained the field that Fall, plowed 
and sub-soiled it, fertilized it liberally, and planted it 
with cabbaoce ; and. when these matured, I sold them 
for enough to pay for land, labor, and fertilizers, alto- 
gether." The field was now worth far more than 
when he bought it, and he had cleared it within fif- 
teen months from the date of its purchase. I con- 
sider that a good operation. Another year, the crop 
might have been poor, or might have sold much low- 
er, so as hardly to pay for the labor ; but there are 
risks in other pursuits as well as in farming. 

A fruit-farmer, on the Hudson above N^ewburg, 
showed me, three years since, a field of eight or ten 
acres which he had nicely set with Grapes, in rows 
ten feet apart, with beds of Strawberries between the 
rows, from which he assured me that his sales per 
acre exceeded $Y00 per annum. I presume his out- 



WILL FARMING PAY ? 17 

lay for labor, including picking, was less than $300 
per annum; but it had cost something to make this 
field what it then was. Say that he had spent $1,000 
per acre in under-draining, enriching and tilling this 
field, to bring it to this condition, including the cost 
of his plants, and still there must have been a clear 
profit here cf at least $300 per acre. 

I might multiply illustrations ; but let the forego- 
ing suffice. I readily admit that shiftless farming 
doesn't pay — that poor crops don't pay — that it is 
hard work to make money by farming without son^e 
capital — that frost, or hail, or drouth, or floods, or 
insects, may blast the farmer's hopes, after he has 
done his best to deserve and achieve success ; but I 
insist that, as a general proposition, Good Farming 
DOES pay — that few pursuits afford as good a pros- 
pect, as full an assurance, of reward for intelligent, 
energetic, persistent effort, as this does. 

I am not arguing that every man should be a 
farmer. Other vocations are useful and necessary, 
and many pursue them with advantage to them- 
selves and to others. But those pursuits are apt to 
be modified by time, and some of them may yet be 
entirely dispensed with, which Farming never can 
be. It is the first and most essential of human pur- 
suits ; it is every one's interest that this calling 
should be honored and prosperous. If not adequately 
recompensed, I judge that is because it is not wisely 
and energetically followed. My aim is to show 
how it may be pursued with satisfaction and profit. 



n. 



GOOD AUB BAD HUSBANDEY. 

Necessity is the master of us all. A farmer may 
be as strenuous for deep plowing as I am — may firmly 
believe that the soil should be thoroughly broken up 
and pulverized to a depth of fifteen to thirty inches, 
according to the crop ; but, if all the team he can 
muster is a yoke of thin, light steers, or a span of 
old, spavined horses, which have not even a speaking 
acquaintance with grain, what shall he do ? So he 
may heartily wish he had a thousand loads of barn- 
yard manure, and know^ how to make a good use of 
every ounce of it ; but, if he has it not, and is not 
able to buy it, he can't always afibrd to forbear sow- 
ing and planting, and so, because he cannot secure 
great crops, do without any crops at all. If he does 
the best he can, what better can he do ? 

Again : Many farmers have fields that must await 
the pleasure of ]^ature to fit them for thorough culti- 
vation. Here is a field — sometimes a whole farm — 
which, if partially divested of the primitive forest, is 
still thickly dotted with obstinate stumps and filled 
with green, tenacious roots, which could only be re- 

(i8) 



GOOD AJ^B BAD HUSBAI^DKY. 19 

moved at a heavy, perhaps ruinous, cost. A rich 
man might order them all dug out in a month, and 
see his order fully obeyed ; but, except to clear a spot 
for a garden or under very pecuKar circumstances, it 
would not pay ; and a poor man cannot afford to in- 
cur a heavy expense merely for appearance's sake, or 
to make a theatrical display of energy. In the great 
majority of cases, he who farms for a living can't af- 
ford to pull green stumps, but must put his newly- 
cleared land into grass at the earliest day, mow the 
smoother, pastm'e the rougher portions of it, and wait 
for rain and drouth, heat and frost, to rot his stumps 
until they can easily be pulled or burned out as they 
stand. 

So with regard to a process I detest, known as 
Pasturing. I do firmly believe that the time is at 
hand when nearly all the food of cattle will, in our 
Eastern and Middle States, be cut and fed to them — 
that we can't afford much longer, even if we can at 
present, to let them roam at will over hill and dale, 
through meadow and forest, biting off the better 
plants and letting the worse go to seed ; often poach- 
ing up the soft, wet soil, especially in Spring, so that 
their hoofs destroy as much as they eat ; nipping and 
often killing in their infancy the finest trees, such as 
the Sugar Maple, and leaving only such as Hemlock, 
Red Oak, Beech, &c., to attain maturity. Our race 
generally emerged from savageism and squalor into 
industry, comfort and thrift, through the Pastoral 
condition — the herding, taming, rearing and training 



20 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

of animals being that department of husbandry to 
which barbarians are most easily attracted : hence, 
we cHng to Pasturing long after the reason for it has 
vanished. The radical, incurable vice of Pasturing— 
that of devouring the better plants and leaving the 
worse to ripen and diffuse seed — can never be wholly 
obviated ; and I deem it safe to estimate that almost 
any farm will carry twice as much stock if their food 
be mainly cut and fed to them as it will if they are 
required to pick it up where and as it grows or grew. 
I am siu'e that the general adoption of Soiling instead 
of Pasturing will add immensely to the annual pro- 
duct, to the wealth, and to the population, of our 
older States. And yet, I know right well that many 
farms are now so rough and otherwise so unsuited to 
Soiling as to preclude its adoption thereon for many 
years to come. 

Let me indicate what I mean by Good Farming, 
through an illustration drawn from the Great West : 

All over the settled portions of the Yalley of the 
Upper Mississippi and the Missouri, there are large 
and gmall herds of cattle that are provided with little 
or no shelter. The lea of a fence or stack, the par- 
tial protection of a young and leafless wood, they 
may chance to enjoy ; but that it is a rainous waste 
to leave them a prey to biting frosts and piercing 
north-westers, their owners seem not to comprehend. 
Many farmers far above want will this Winter feed 
out fields of Corn and stacks of Hay to herds of cat- 
tle that will not be one pound heavier on the 1st of 



GOOD AlHD BAD HUSBANDEY. 21' 

next May than tliej were on tlie 1st of last December 
— who will have required that fodder merely to pre- 
serve their vitality and escape freezing to death. It 
has mainly been employed as fuel rather than as 
nourishment, and has served, not to put on flesh, but 
to keep out frost. 

Now I am familiar with the excuses for this waste ; 
but they do not satisfy me. The poorest pioneer 
mio^ht have built for his one cow a rude shelter of 
stakes, and poles, and straw or prairie-grass, if he 
had realized its importance, simply in the light of 
economy. He who has many cattle is rarely without 
both straw and timber, and might shelter his stock 
abundantly if he only would. ]^ay, he could not 
have neglected or omitted it if he had clearly imder- 
stood that his beasts must somehow be supplied with 
heat, and that he can far cheaper warm them from 
without than from within. 

The broad, general, unquestionable truths, on which 
I insist in behalf of Good Farming are these ; and I 
do not admit that they are subject to exception : 

I. It is very rarely impracticable to grow good 
crops, if you are willing to work for them. If your 
land is too poor to grow Wheat or Corn, and you are 
not yet able to enrich it, sow Hye or Buckwheat ; if 
you cannot coax it to grow a good crop of anything, 
let it alone ; and, if you cannot run av/ay from it, 
work out by the day or month for your more fortu- 
nate neighbors. The time and means squandered in 
trying to grow crops where only half or quarter 



22 WHAT I KNOW OF FAJBMING. 

crops can be made, constitute tlie heaviest item on 
the wrong side of our farmers' balance-sheets ; taxing 
them more than their National, estate, and local gov- 
ernments together do. 

II. Good crops rarely fail to yield a profit to the 
grower. I know there are exceptions, but they are 
Jvery few. Keep your eye on the farmer who almost 
mniformly has great G-rass, good Wheat, heavy 
iCorn, &c., and, unless he drinks, or has some other 
ibad habit, you wiU find him growing rich. I am 
confident that white blackbirds are nearly as abund- 
ant as farmers who have become poor while usually 
growing good crops. 

III. The fairest single test of good farming is the 
increasing productiveness of the soil. That farm 
which averaged twenty bushels of grain to the acre 
twenty years ago, twenty-five bushels ten years ago, 
and will measure up thirty bushels to the acre from 
this year's crop, has been and is in good hands. I 
know no other touchstone of Farming so unerring as 
that of the increase or decrease from year to year 
of its aggregate product. If you would convince me 
that X. is a good farmer, do not tell me of some great 
crop he has just grown, but show me that his crop 
has regularly increased from year to year, and I am 
satisfied. 

— I shall have more to say on these points as I pro- 
ceed. It suffices for the present if I have clearly in- 
dicated what I mean by Good and what by Bad 
Farming. 



III. 



WHERE TO FAiiM. 

"When mj father was over sixty years old, and had 
lived some twenty years in Erie County, Pennsyl- 
vania, he said to me : '' I have several times re- 
moved, and always toward the West ; I shall never 
remove again ; but, were I to do so, it would be to- 1 
ward the East. Experience has taught me that the;' 
advantages of every section are counterbalanced by i 
disadvantages, and that, where any crop is easily 1 
produced, there it sells low, and sometimes cannot be 
sold at all. I shall live and die right here ; bnt, were 
I to remove again, it would not be toward the West." 

This is but one side of a truth, and I give it for 
whatever it may be worth. Had my father plunged 
into the primitive forest in his twenty-fifth rather 
than his forty-fifth year, he would doubtless have be- 
come more reconciled to pioneer life than he ever did. 
I wonld advise no one over forty years of age to 
undertake, with scanty means, to dig a farm out of 
the dense forest, where great trees must be cut down 
and cut up, rolled into log-heaps, and burned to ashes 
where they grew. Where half the timber can be 

(23) 



24 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

sold for enongli to pay the cost of cutting, tlie case is 
different ; but I know rigLo well tliat digging a farm 
out of the high woods is, to any but a man of wealth, 
a slow, hard task. Making one out of naked prairie, 
five to ten miles from timber, is less difficult, but not 
much. He who can locate where he has good timber 
on one side and rich prairie on the other is fortunate, 
and may hope, if his health be spared, to surround 
himself with every needed comfort within ten years. 
Still, the pioneer's life is a rugged one, especially for 
women and children ; and I should advise any man 
who is worth $2,000 and has a family, to buy out an 
^' improvement " (which, in most cases, badly needs 
improving) on the outskirt of civilization, rather than 
plunge into the pathless forest or push out upon the 
unbroken prairie. I rejoice that our Public Lands 
are free to actual settlers ; I believe that many are 
thereby enabled to make for themselves homes who 
otherwise would have nothing to leave their children ; 
yet I much prefer a home within the boundaries of 
civilization to one clearly beyond them. There is a 
class of drinking, hunting, frolicking, rarely working, 
frontiersmen, who seem to have been created on pur- 
pose to erect log cabins and break paths in advance 
of a different class of settlers, who regularly come in 
to buy them out and start them along after a few 
years. I should here prefer to follow rather than lead. 
If Co-operation shall ever be successfully aj)plied to 
the improvement of wild lands, I trust it may be 
otherwise. 



WHERE TO FARM. 25 

He who has a farm already, and is content with it, 
has no reason to ask, " Whither shall I go ?" and he 
may rest assured that thoroughly good farming will 
pay as well in ^ew England as in Kansas or in Min- 
nesota. I advise no man who has a good farm any- 
where, and is able to keep it, to sell and migrate. I 
know men who make money by growing food within 
twenty miles of this city quite as fast as they could 
in the West. If you have money to buy and work 
it, and know how to make the most of it, I believe 
you may find land really as cheajD, all things consid- 
ered, in Vermont as in Wisconsin or Arkansas. 

And yet I believe in migration — ^believe that there 
are thousands in the Eastern and the Middle States 
who would improve their circumstances and prospects 
by migrating to the cheaper lands and broader oppor- 
tunities of the West and South. For, in the first 
place, most men are by migration rendered more en- 
ergetic and aspiring ; thrown among strangers, they 
feel the necessity of exertion as they never felt it be- 
fore. Needing almost everything, and obliged to 
rely wholly on themselves, they work in their new 
homes as they never did in their old ; and the conse- 
quences are soon visible all around them. 

" A stern chase is a long chase," say the sailors ; 
and he who buys a farm mainly on credit, intending 
to pay for it out of its proceeds, finds interest, taxes, 
sickness, bad seasons, hail, frost, drouth, tornadoes, 
floods, &c., &c., deranging his calculations and im- 
peding his progress, until he is often impelled to 
2 



26 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

give "up in despair.' There are men who can sur- 
mount every obstacle and defy discouragement — 
these need no advice ; but there are thousands who, 
having httle means and large families, can grow into 
a good farm more easily and far more surely than 
they can pay for it ; and these may wisely seek homes 
where population is yet sparse and land is consequent- 
ly cheap. Doubtless, some migrate who might bet- 
ter have forborne ; yet the instinct which draws our 
race toward sunset is nevertheless a true one. The 
East will not be depopulated ; but the West will grow 
more rapidly in the course of the next twenty years 
than ever in the past. The Railroads which have 
brought Kansas and Minnesota within three days, 
and California within a week of us, have rendered 
this inevitable. 

But the South also invites immigration as she never 
did till now. Her lands are still very cheap ; she is 
better timbered, in the average, than the West ; her 
climate attracts; her unopened mines and unused 
water-power call loudly for enterprise, labor and 
skill. It is absurd to insist that her soil is exhausted 
when not one-third of it has ever yet been plowed. 
I do not advise solitary migration to the South, be- 
cause she needs schools, mills, roads, bridges, 
churches, &c., &c., which the solitary immigrant can 
neither provide nor well do without : and I have no 
assurance that he, if obliged to work out for present 
bread, would find those ready to employ and willing 
to pay liim ; but let a hundred ^N^orthern farmers and 



WHERE TO FAR]Nr. 2T 

meclianics worth $1,000 to $3,000 each combine to 
select (through chosen agents) and buy ten or twenty 
thousand acres in some Southern State, embracing hill 
and vale, timber and tillage, water-power and miner- 
als, and divide it equitably among themselves, after 
laying it out with roads, a park, a village-plat, sites 
for churches, schools, &c., and I am confident that 
they can thus make pleasant homes more cheaply and 
speedily there than almost anywhere else. 

Good farming land, improved or unimproved, is 
this day cheaper in the United States, all things con- 
sidered, than in any other country — cheaper than it 
can long remain. So many are intent on short cuts 
to riches that the soil is generally neglected, and may 
be bought amazingly cheap in parts of Connecticut 
as well as in Iowa or ]^ebraska. Wlien I was last in 
Illinois, I rode for some hours beside a gray-coated 
farmer of some sixty years, who told me this : " I 
came here thirty years ago, and took up, at $1|- per 
acre, a good tract of land, mainly in timber. I am 
now selling off the timber at $100 per acre, reserv- 
ing the land." That seems to me a good operation — • 
not so quick as a corner in the stock-market, but 
far safer. And, while I would advise no man to incur 
debt, I say most earnestly to all who have means, 
*' Look out the place where you would prefer to live 
and die; take time to suit yourself thoroughly; 
choose it with reference to your means, your calling, 
your expectations, and, if you can pay for it, lyv/y it. 
Do not imagine that land is cheap in the West or 



28 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

the Soutli only ; it is to be found cheap in ^aery 
State by those who are able to own and who know 
how to use it.'' 

I earnestly trust that the obvious advantages of 
settling in colonies are to be widely and rapidly im- 
proved by our people, nearly as follows : One thous- 
and heads of families unite to form a colony, contribute 
$100 to $500 each to defray the cost of seeking out 
and securing a suitable location, and send out two or 
three of the most capable and trustworthy of their num- 
ber to find and purchase it ; and now let their lands be 
surveyed and divided into village or city lots at or near 
the center, larger allotments (for mechanics' and mer- 
chants' homes) surroimding that center, and far larger 
(for farms) outside of these ; and let each member, on 
or soon after his arrival, select a village-lot, out-lot, 
farm, or one of each if he chooses and can pay for 
them. Let ample reservations of the best sites for 
churches, school-houses, a town hall, public park, etc., 
be made in laying out the village, and let each pur- 
chaser of a lot or farm be required to plant shade-trees 
along the highways which skirt or traverse it. If 
irrigation by common effort be deemed necessary, let 
provision be made for that. Run up a large, roomy 
structure for a family hotel or boarding-house ; and 
now invite each stockholder to come on, select his land, 
pay for it, and get up some sort of a dwelling, leaving 
his family to follow when this shall have been rendered 
habitable ; but, if they insist on coming on with him 
and taking their chances, so be it. 



IV. 



PEEPAEma TO FA^M. 

1 WEiTE mainly for beginners — for young persons, 
and some not so young, who are looking to farming 
as the vocation to vrliicli their future years are to be 
given, by which their living is to be gained. In this 
chapter, I would counsel young men, who, not having 
been reared in personal contact with the daily and 
yearly round of a farmer's cares and duties, purpose 
henceforth to live by farming. 

To these I would earnestly say, '• 'No haste !" Our 
boys are in too great a hurry to be men. They want 
to be bosses before they have qualified themselves to 
be efficient journeymen. I have personally known 
several instances of young men, fresh from school or 
from some city vocation, buying or hiring a farm and 
undertaking to work it ; and I cannot now recall a 
single instance in which the attempt has succeeded ; 
while speedy failure has been the usual result. The 
assumption that farming is a rude, simple matter, re- 
quiring little intellect and less experience, has buried 
many a well-meaning youth under debts which the 
best efforts of many subsequent years will barely 

(^9) 



30 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

enable him to pay off. In my opinion, half our farm- 
ers now living would say, if questioned, that they 
might better have waited longer before buying or 
hiring a farm. 

When I was ten years old, my father took a job of 
clearing off the mainly fallen and partially rotten 
timber — ^largely White Pine and Black Ash — from 
fifty acres of level and then swampy land ; and he 
and his two boys gave most of the two ensuing years 
(1821-2) to the rugged task. When it was finished, 
1 — a boy of twelve years — could have^ken just such 
a tract of half-burned primitive for^* as that was 
when we took hold of it, and cleared it by an expen- 
diture of seventy to eighty per cent, of the labor we 
actually bestowed upon that. I had learned, in clear- 
ing this, how to economize labor in any future under- 
taking of the kind ; and so every one learns by ex- 
perience who steadily observes and reflects. He 
must have been a very good farmer at the start, or a 
very poor one afterward, who cannot grow a thousand 
bushels of grain much cheaper at thirty years of age 
than he could at twenty. 

To every young man who has had no farming ex- 
perience, or very little, yet who means to make farm- 
ing his vocation, I say. Hire out, for the coming year, 
to the very best farmer who will give you anything 
like the value of your labor. Buy a very few choice 
books, (if you have them not already,) which treat 
of Geology, Chemistry, Botany, and the application 
o^ their truths in Practical Agriculture ; give to these 



PKEPARING TO FARM. 31 

the close and thoiiglitful attention of your few leisure 
hours ; keep your eyes wide open, and set down in a 
note-book or pocket-diary each night a minute of 
whatever has been done on the farm that day, making 
a note of each storm, shower, frost, hail, etc., and 
also of the date at which each planted crop requires 
tillage or is ripe enough to harvest, and ascertaining, 
so far as possible, what each crop produced on the 
farm has cost, and which of them all are produced at 
a profit and which at a loss. At the year's end, hire 
again to the same or another good farmer and pursue 
the same course ; and so do till you shall be twenty- 
four or twenty-five years of age, which is young 
enough to marry, and quite young enough to uuder- 
take the management of a farm. By this time, if 
you have carefully saved and wisely invested your 
earnings, you will have several hundred dollars ; and, 
if you do not choose to migrate to some region where 
land is very cheap, you will have found some one 
willing to sell you a small farm on credit, taking a 
long mortgage as security. Your money — assuming 
that you have only what you will have earned — will 
all be wanted to fix up your building, buy a team and 
cow, with the few implements needed, and supply 
you with provisions till you can grow some. If you 
can start thus experienced and full-handed, you may, 
by diligence, combined with good fortune, begin to 
make payments on your mortgage at the close of 
your second year. 

I hate debt as profoundly as any one can, but I do 



32 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

not consider this really running into debt. One has 
more land than he needs, and does not need his pay 
for it forthwith ; another wants land, but lacks the 
means of present payment. They two enter into an 
agreement mutually advantageous, whereby the poor- 
er has the present use and ultimate fee-simple of the 
farm in question, in consideration of the payment of 
certain sums as duly stipulated. Technically, the 
buyer becomes a debtor ; practically, I do not regard 
him as such, until payments fall due which he is un- 
able promptly to meet. Let him rigorously avoid 
all other debt, and he need not shrink from nor be 
ashamed of this. 

I have a high regard for scientific attainments ; I 
wish every young man were thoroughly instructed in 
the sciences which underlie the art of farming. But 
all the learning on earth, though it may powerfully 
help to make a good farmer, would not of itself make 
one. When a young man has learned all that semi- 
naries and lectures, books and cabinets, can teach 
him, he still needs practice and experience to make 
him a good farmer. 

— ''But would n't you have a young man study in 
order that he may become a good farmer?" 

— If he has money, Yes. I believe a youth worth 
four or five thousand dollars may wisely spend a 
tenth of his means in attending lectures, and even 
courses of study, at any good seminary where J^atural 
Science is taught and applied to Agriculture. But 
life is short at best ; and he who has no means, or 



PREPAKING TO FAKM. 83 

very little, cannot really afford to attend even an 
Agricultural College. He can acquire so mucli of 
Science as is indispensable in tlie'clieajDer way I have 
indicated, fle cannot wisely consent to spend tlie 
best years of his life in getting ready to live. 

He who has already mastered the art of farming, 
and has adequate means, may of course buy a farm 
to-morrow, though he be barely or not quite of age. 
He has little to learn from me. Yet I think even 
such have often concluded, in after years, that they 
were too hasty in buying land — that they might 
profitably have waited, and deliberated, and garnered 
the treasures of experience, before they took the grave 
step of buying their future home; with regard to 
which I shall make some suggestions in my next 
chapter. • 

But I protest against a young man's declining or 
postponing the purchase of a farm merely because he 
is not able to buy a great one. Twenty acres of ara- 
ble soil near a city or manufacturing village, forty 
aci'es in a rm-al district of any old State, or eighty 
acres in a region just beginning to be peopled by 
.White men, is an ample area for any one who is worth 
less than $2,000. If he understands his business, he 
will find profitable employment hereon for every 
working hour : if he does not understand farming, 
he will buy his experience dear enough on this, yet 
more cheaply than he would on a wider area. Until 
he shall have more money than he needs, let him be- 
ware of bu}^ng more land than he absolutely wants. 
2* 



Y. 



BUYING A FABM. 

"No one need be told at tliis day that good land is 
cheaper than poor — that the former may be bonght 
at less cost than it can be made. Yet this, like 
most truths, may be given undue emphasis. It 
should be considered in the light of the less obvious 
truth that Every farmer may make advantageous use 
of SOME jpoor land. The smallest farm should have 
its strip or belt of forest ; the larger should have an 
abundance and variety of trees ; and sterile, stony 
land grows many if not most trees thriftily. Even 
at the risk of arousing Western prejudice, I maintain 
that ]N^ew-England, and all broken, hilly, rocky 
countries, have a decided advantage (abundantly 
counterbalanced, no doubt) over regions of great fer- 
tility and nearly uniform facihty, in that human 
stupidity and mole-eyed greed can never wholly di- 
vest them of forests — that their sterile crags and 
steep acclivities must mainly be left to wood forever. 
Avarice may strip them of their covering of to-day; 
but, defying the plow and the spade, they cannot be 
so denuded that they will not be speedily reclothed 
with trees and foliage. 

(34) 



BUYING A FAKM. 35 

I am not a believer tliat " Five Acres " or " Ten 
Acres " suffice for a farm. I know where money is 
made on even fewer than ^ve acres ; but they who 
do it are few, and men of exceptional capacity and 
diligence. Their achievements are necessarily con- 
hned to the vicinage of cities or manufacturing vil- 
lages. The great majority of all who live by Agri- 
culture want room to turn upon — want to grow grass 
and keep stock — and, for such, no mere garden or 
potato-patch will answer. They want genuine farms. 

Yet, go where you may in this country, you will 
hear a farmer saying of his neighbor, " He has too 
much land," even where the criticism might justly 
be reciprocated. We cannot all be mistaken on this 
head. 

There are men who can each manage thousands 
of acres of tillage, just as there are those who can 
skillfully wield an army of a hundred thousand men*, 
l^apoleon said there were two of this class in th^ 
Europe of his day. There are others who cannot 
handle a hundred acres so that nothing is lost through 
neglect or oversight. Rules must be adapted to 
average capacities and circumstances. He who ex- 
pects to Kve by cattle-rearing needs many more acres 
than he who is intent on grain-growing ; while he 
who contemplates vegetable, root, and fruit culture, 
needs fewer acres still. As to the direction of his 
eiforts, each one will be a law unto himself 

If I were asked, by a young man intent on farm 
ing, to indicate the proper area for him, I would 



36 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

say, Buy just so large a farm as half your means 
will ^ay for. In other words, " If you are worth 
$20,000, invest half of it in land, the residue in 
stock, tools, etc. ; and observe the same rule of pro- 
portion, whether you be worth $1,000,000 or only 
$1,000. If you are worth just nothing at all, I 
would invest in land the half of that, and no more. 
In other words, I would either wait to earn $500 or 
over, or push Westward till I found land that costs 
practically nothing. 

This, then, I take to be the gist of the popular 
criticism on our farmers as having unduly enlarged 
their borders : They have more land than they have 
capital to stock and till to the hest advantage. He 
who has but fifty acres has too much if he lets part 
of his land lie idle and unproductive for lack of team 
or hands to till it efficiently ; while he who has a 
thousand acres has none too much if he has the means 
and talents wherewith to make the best of it all. 

I have said that I consider the soil of JSTew Eng- 
land as cheap, all things considered, for him who is 
able to buy and work it, as that of Minnesota or Ar- 
kansas — that I urge migration to the West only upon 
those who cannot pay for farms in the old States. I 
doubt whether the farmers of any other section have, 
in the average, done better, throughout the last ten 
years, than the batter-makers of Vermont, the cheese- 
dairymen of this State. And yet there is, in the 
ridgy, ror'-ky, patchy character of most of our Eastern 
farms, an insuperable barrier to the most economic, 



BUYING A FARM. 37 

effective cultivation. If the ridges were further 
apart — if each rocky or gravelly knoll were not in 
close proximity to a strip of bog or morass — it would 
be different. But the genius of our age points un- 
mistakably to cultivation by steam or some other me- 
chanical application of power ; and this requires 
spacious fields, with few or no obstacles to the equa- 
ble progress of the plow. I apprehend that, for this 
reason, the growth of bread-corn eastward of the 
Hudson can never more be considerably extended, 
so long as the boundless, fertile prairies can so easily 
pour their exhaustless supplies upon us. Fruits, 
Vegetables, Koots and Grass, we must continue to 
grow, probably in ever-increasing abundance ; but 
we of the East w411 buy our bread-corn largely if not 
mainly from the West. 

He, therefore, who buys land in the Eastern States 
should regard primarily its capacity to produce those 
crops in which the East can never be supplanted — 
Grass, Fruits, Yegetables, Timber. If a farm will 
also produce good Corn or Wheat, that is a recom- 
mendation ; but let him place a higher value on those 
capacities which will be more generally required and 
drawn upon. 

In the West, the case is different ; for, though 
Wheat-culture still recedes before the footsteps of 
advancing population, and Minnesota may soon cease 
to grow for others', as Western ]^ew-York, Ohio, In- 
diana, and Northern Illinois, have already done, yet 
Indian Corn, being the basis of both Beef and Pork, 



X 



38 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

will long hold its own in the Yalley of the Ohio and 
in that of the Upper Mississippi. As it recedes 
slowly Westward, Clover and Timothy, Butter and 
Cheese, will press closely on its footsteps. 

Good neighbors, good roads, good schools, good 
mechanics at hand, and a good church within reach, 
will always be valued and sought : few farmers are 
likely to disregard them. Let whoever buys a farm 
whereon to live resolve to buy once for all, and let 
him not forget that health is not only wealth but 
happiness — that an eligible location and a beautiful 
prospect are elements of enjoyment not only for our- 
selves but our friends ; let him not fancy that all the 
land will soon be gobbled up and held at exorbitant 
prices, but believe that money will almost always 
command money's worth of whatever may be need- 
ed, so that he need not embarrass himself to-day 
through fear that he may not be able to find sellers 
to-morrow, and he can hardly fail to buy judiciously 
and thus escape that worst species of home-sickness — ■ 
sickness of home. 



YI. 



LATmG OFF A FAEM — PASTUEING. 

"Whoever finds himself tlie newly installed owner 
and occupant of a farm, slionld, before doing much 
beyond growing a crop in the ordinary way, study 
well its character, determine its capacities, make him- 
self well acquainted with its peculiarities of soil and 
surface, with intent to make the most of it in his fu- 
ture operations. I would devote at least a year to 
this thoughtful observation and study. 

To one reared amid the rugged scenery of ]^ew- 
England, or on either slope of the Allegheny ridge, 
all prairie farms look alike, just as a European sup- 
poses this to be the case with all negroes. A better 
acquaintance will show the average prairie quarter- 
section by no means an unbroken meadow, " level as 
a house -floor," but diversified by water-courses, 
" sloughs," and gentle acclivities — sometimes by con- 
siderable ravines and " barrens " or elevated " swales," 
thinly covered with timber, or brush, or both. But 
I will contemplate more especially a Northern farm, 
made up of hill and vale or glade, rocky ridge and 
skirting bog or other low land, with a wood-lot on 

(39) 



40 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

the rear or not far distant, and clumps or belts of 
timber irregularly lining brook and ravine, or lurk- 
ing in the angles and sinuosities of walls and wooden 
fences, and a ragged, mossy orchard sheltered in some 
quiet nook, or sprawling over some gravelly hill-side. 
A brook, nearly dry in August, gurgles down the 
hill-side or winds through the swamp ; while fields, 
moderately sloping here and nearly level there, in- 
terposed as they can be, have severally been devoted, 
for a generation or more, alternately to Grain and 
Grass— the latter largely preponderating. "We will 
suppose this farm to measure from 50 to 150 acres. 

Now, the young man who has bought or inherited 
this farm may be wholly and consciously unable to 
enter npon any expensive system of improvement 
for the next ten years — may fully realize that four or 
five days of each week mnst meantime be given to 
the growing or earning of present bread — yet he 
should none the less study well the capacities and 
adaptations of each acre, and mature a comprehen- 
sive plan for the ultimate bringing of each field into 
the best and most useful condition whereof it is sus- 
ceptible, before he cuts a living tree or digs a solitary 
drain. He is morally certain of doing something — 
perhaps many things — that he will sadly wish un- 
done, if he fails to study peculiarities and mature a 
plan before he begins to improve or to fit his several 
fields for profitable cultivation. 

And the first selection to be made is that of a pas- 
ture, since I am compelled to use an old, familiar 



LAYING OFF A FARM PASTURING. 4:1 

name for what should be essentially a new thing. 
This pasture should be as near the center of the farm 
as may be, and convenient to the barns and barn- 
yard that are to be. It should have some shade, but 
no very young trees; should be dry and rolHng, with 
an abundance of the purest living water. The 
smaller this pasture-lot may be, the better I shall like 
it, provided you fence it very stoutly, connect it with 
the barn-yard by a lane if they are not in close prox- 
imity, and firmly resolve that, outside of this lot, this 
lane, this yard and the adjacent stable, your cattle 
shall never be seen, unless on the road to market. 
Yery possibly, the day may come wherein you will 
decide to dispense with pasturing altogether; but 
that is, for the present, improbable. One j^asture you 
will have ; if you live in the broad West, and purpose 
to graze extensively, it will doubtless be a large one ; 
but permitting your stock to ramble in Spring and 
Fall all over your own fields — (and perhaps your 
neighbors' also) — in quest of their needful food, biting 
off the tops of the finer young trees, trampling down 
or breaking off some that are older, rubbing the 
bark off of your growing fruit-trees, and doing dam- 
age that years will be required to repair, I most 
vehemently protest against. 

The one great error that misleads and corrupts 
mankind is the presumption that something may he 
had for nothing. The average farmer imagines that 
whatever of flesh or of milk may accrue to him from 
the food his cattle obtain by browsing over his fields 



42 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

or through his woods, is so much clear gain — that 
they do the needful work, while he pockets the net 
proceeds. But the universe was framed on a plan 
which requires so much for so much ; and this law 
will not submit to defiance or evasion. Under the 
unnatural, exceptional conditions which environ the 
lone squatter on a vast prairie, something may be 
made by turning cattle loose and letting them shift 
for themselves ; but this is at best transitory, and at 
war with the exigencies of civihzation. Whoever 
lives within sight of a school-house, or within hear- 
ing of a church-bell, is under the dominion of a law 
alike inexorable and beneficent — the law that requires 
each to pay for all he gets, and reap only where he 
has sown. 

You can hardly have a pasture so small that it will 
not afford hospitality to weeds and prove a source 
of multiform infestations. The plants that should 
mature and be diffused will be kept down to the 
earth ; those which should be warred upon and eradi- 
cated will flourish untouched, ripen their seed, and 
diffuse it far and wide. Thistles, White Daisy, and 
every plant that impedes tillage and diminishes crops, 
are nourished and diffused by means of pastures. 

I hold, therefore, that the good farmer will run a 
mowing-machine over his pasture twice each Sum- 
mer — say early in June, and then late in July — or, 
jif his lot be too rough for this, "wdll have it clipped 
i at least once with a scythe. Cutting all manner of 

Worthless if not noxious plants in the blossom, will 

t 



LAYING OFF A FAEM PASTURING. 43 

benefit the soil whicli their seeding would tax; it 
will render the eradication of weeds from your till- 
age a far easier task ; and it will prevent your being 
a nuisance to your neighbors. I am confident that 
no one who has formed the habit of keeping down 
the weeds in his pasture will ever abandon it. 

I think each pasture should have (though mine, as 
yet, has not) a rude shed or other shelter whereto the 
cattle may resort in case of storm or other inclemency. 
How much they shrink as well as sufifer from one cold, 
pelting rain, few fully realize ; but I am sure that 
" the merciful man" who (as the Scripture says) " is 
merciful to his beast," finds his humanity a good pay- 
ing investment. I doubt that the rule would fail, 
even in Texas ; but I am contemplating civilized hus- 
bandry, not the rude conditions of tropical semi-bar- 
barism. If only by means of stakes and straw, give 
cattle a chance to keep dry and warm when they 
must otherwise shiver through a rainy, windy day 
and night on the cold, wet ground, and I am sure 
they will pay for it. 

In confining a herd of cattle to such narrow Kmits, 
I do not intend that they shall be stinted to what 
grows there. On the contrary, I expect them to be 
fed on Winter Rye, on Cut Grass, on Sowed Corn, 
Sorghum, Stalks, Roots, etc., etc., as each shall be in 
season. With a good mower, it is a Hght hour's work 
before breakfast to cut and cart to a dozen or twenty 
head as much grass or corn as they will eat during the 
day. But let that point stand over for the present. 



YII. 

TREES ^WOODLAIJD FOEESTS. 

I AM not at all sentimental — much less mawkish — 
regarding the destruction of trees. Descended from 
several generations of timber-cutters (for my paternal 
ancestors came to America in 164:0), and myself en- 
gaged for three years in land-clearing, I realize that 
trees exist for use rather than for ornament, and have 
no more scruple as to cutting timber in a forest than 
as to cutting grass in a meadow. Utility is the rea- 
son and end of all vegetable growth — of a hickory's 
no less than a cornstalk's. I have always considered 
'' Woodman, spare that tree," just about the most 
mawkish bit of badly versified prose in our language, 
and never could guess how it should touch the sen- 
sibilities of any one. Understand, then, that I urge 
the planting of trees mainly because I believe it will 
jpay^ and the preservation, improvement, and exten- 
sion, of forests, for precisely that reason. 

Yet I am not insensible to the beauty and grace 
lent by woods, and groves, and clumps or rows of 
trees, to the landscape they diversify. I feel the 
force of Emerson's averment, that "Beauty is its 

(44) 



TREES WOODLAND FORESTS. 45 

own excuse for being," and know that a homestead 
embowered in, belted by, stately, graceful elms, 
maples, and evergreens, is really worth more, and 
will sell for more, than if it were naked field and 
meadow. I consider it one positive advantage (to 
balance many disadvantages) of our rocky, hilly, 
rugged Eastern country, that it will never, in all 
probability, be so denuded of forests as the rich, 
facile prairies and swales of the Great Yalley may be. 
Our winds are less piercing, our tornadoes less de- 
structive, than those of the Great West. I doubt 
whether there is another equal area of the earth's 
surface whereon so many kinds of valuable trees grow 
spontaneously and rapidly, defying eradication, as 
throughout I^ew-England and on either slope of the 
Alleghenies ; and this profusion of timber and foliage 
may well atone for, or maybe fairly weighed against, 
many deficiencies and drawbacks. The Yankee, who 
has been accustomed to see trees spring up spontane- 
ously wherever they were not kept down by ax, or 
plow, or scythe, and to cross running water every 
half mile of a Summer day's journey, may well be 
made homesick, by two thousand miles of naked, 
dusty, wind-swept Plains, whereon he finds no water 
for fifty to a hundred miles, and knows it impossible 
to cut an ax-helve, much more an axle-tree, in the 
course of a wearying journey. No Eastern farmer 
ever realized the blessedness of abundant and excel- 
lent wood and water until he had wandered far from 
his boyhood's home. 



40 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

'No one may yet be able fully to explain the inter- 
depeudence of these two blessings ; but the fact re- 
mains. All over " the Plains," there is evidence that 
trees grew and flourished where none are now found, 
and that springs and streams were then frequent and 
abiding where none now exist. A prominent citizen 
of ITevada, who explored southward from Austin to 
the Colorado, assured me that his party traveled for 
days in the bed of what had once been a considerable 
river, but in which it was evident that no water had 
flowed for years. And I have heard that, since the 
Mormons have planted trees over considerable sec- 
tions of Utah, rains in Summer are no longer rare, 
and Salt Lake evinces, by a constant though moder- 
ate increase of her volume of waters, that the equilib- 
rium of rain-fall with evaporation in the Great 
Basin has been fully restored — or rather, that the 
rain-fall is now taking the lead. 

I have a firm faith that all the great deserts of the 
Temperate and Torrid Zones will yet be reclaimed 
by irrigation and tree-planting. The bill which Con- 
gress did not pass, nor really consider, whereby it 
was proposed, some years since, to give a section of 
the woodless Public Lands remote from settlement to 
every one who, in a separate township, would plant 
and cherish a quarter-section of choice forest-trees, 
ought to have been passed — with modifications, per- 
haps, but preserving the central idea. Had ten thous- 
and quarter-sections, in so many difterent townships 
of the Plains, been thus planted to timber ten to 



TREES — WOODLAND FORESTS. 47 

twenty years ago, and protected from fire and devas- 
tation till now, the value of those Plains for settle- 
ment would have been nearly or quite doubled. . 

A capital mistake, it seems to me, is being made by 
some of the dairy farmers of our own State. One 
who has a hundred acres of good soil, whereof twenty 
or thirty are wooded, cuts oiF his timber entirely, cal- 
culating that the additional grass that he may grow 
in its stead will pay for all the coal he needs" for fuel, 
so that he will make a net gain of the time he has 
hitherto devoted each Winter to cutting and hauling 
wood. He does not consider how much his soil will 
lose in Summer moisture, how his springs and run- 
nels will be dried up, nor how" the sweep of harsh 
winds will be intensified, by baring his hill-tops and 
ravines to sun and breeze so utterly. In my deliber- 
ate judgment, a farm of one hundred acres will yield 
more feed, with far greater uniformity of product from 
year to year, if twenty acres of its ridge-crests, ravine- 
sides, and rocky places, are thickly covered with tim- 
ber, than if it be swept clean of trees and all devoted 
to grass. Hence, I insist that the farmer who sweeps 
off his wood and resolves to depend on coal for fuel, 
hoping to increase permanently the product of his 
dairy, makes a sad miscalculation. 

Spain, Italy, and portions of France, are now suf- 
fering from the improvidence that devoured their for- 
ests, leaving the future to take care of itself. I pre- 
sume the great empires of antiquity suffered from the 
same folly, though to a much greater extent. The 



4:8 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

remains of now extinct races wlio formerly peopled 
and tilled the central valleys of this continent, and 
especially the Territory of Arizona, probably bear 
witness to a similar recklessness, which is paralleled 
by our fathers' and onr own extermination of the 
magnificent forests of White Pine which, barely a 
century ago, covered so large a portion of the soil of 
our ]^orthern States. Vermont sold White Pine 
abundantly to England through Canada within my 
day : she is now supplying her own wants from Can- 
ada at a cost of not less than five times the price she 
sold for ; and she will be paying still higher rates be- 
fore the close of this century. I entreat our faiToera 
not to preserve every tree, good, bad, or indifierent, 
that may happen to be growing on their lands — ^but, 
outside of the limited districts wherein the primitive 
forest must still be cut away in order that land may 
be obtained for cultivation, to plant and rear at least 
tvjo hetter trees for every one they may he impelled to 
cut down. How this may, in the average, be most 
judiciously done, I will try to indicate in the suc- 
ceeding chapter. 



YIII. 

GROWING TIMBER — TREE-PLANTING. 

In my judgment, the proportion of a small farm 
that should be constantly devoted to trees (other than 
fruit) is not less than one-fourth ; Y/hile, of farms ex- 
ceeding one hundred acres in area, that proportion 
should be not less than one-third, and may often be 
profitably increased to one-half. I am thinking of 
such as are in good part superficially rugged and 
rocky, or sand}'' and sterile, such as JSTew-England, 
eastern l^ew-York, northern iN'ew-Jersey, with both 
slopes of the Alleghenies, as well as the western third 
of our continent, abound in. It may be that it is ad- 
visable to be content with a smaller proportion of 
timber in the Prairie States and the broad, fertile in- 
tervales which embosom most of our great rivers for 
at least a part of their course ; but I doubt it. And 
there is scarcely a farm in the whole country, outside 
of the great primitive forests in which openings have 
but recently been made, in which some tree-planting 
is not urgently required. 

" Too much land," you will hear assigned on every 
side as a reason for poor farming and meager crops. 
3 (49) 



60 WHAT I KtrOW OF FARMLN-Q. 

Ask an average farmer in Kew-England, in Yirginia, 
in Kentuclcy, or in Alabama, why the crops of his 
section are in the average no better, and the answer, 
three times in four, will be, "Our farmers have too 
much land" — that is, not too much absolutely, but 
too much relatively to their capital, stock, and gen- 
eral ability to till effectively. The habitual grower 
of poor crops will proffer this explanation quite as 
freely and frequently as his more thrifty neighbor. 
And what every one asserts must have a basis of 
truth. 

[N^ow, I do not mean to quarrel with the instinct 
which prompts my countrymen to buy and hold too 
much land. They feel, as I do, that land is still 
cheap almost anywhere in this country — cheap, if not 
in view of the income now derived from it, cer- 
tainly in contemplation of the price it must soon 
command and the income it might, nnder better 
management, be made to yield. Under this convic- 
tion — or, if you please, impression — every one is in- 
tent on holding on to more land than he can profit- 
ably till, if not more than he can promptly pay for. 

"What I do object to is simply this— that thousands, 
who have more land than they have capital to work 
profitably, will persist in half-tilling many acres, in- 
stead of thoroughly farming one-half or one third so 
many, and getting the rest into wood so fast as may 
be. I am confident that two-thirds of all our farm- 
ers would improve their circumstances and increase 
their incomes by concentrating their efforts, their 



GROWING TIMBER TREE -PLANTING. 51 

means, their fertilizers, upon half to two-thirds of 
the area they now skim and skin, and giving the 
residue back to timber-growing. 

In my own hilly, rocky, often boggy, "Westchester 
— probably within six of being the oldest Agricul- 
tural County in the Union — I am confident that ten 
thousand acres might to-morrow be given back to 
forest with profit to the owners and advantage to all 
its inhabitants. It is a fruit-growing, milk-producing, 
truck-farming county, closely adjoining the greatest 
city of the E'ew "World ; hence, one wherein land can 
be cultivated as profitably as almost anywhere else — 
yet I am satisfied that half its surface may be more 
advantageously devoted to timber than to grass or 
tillage. Nay ; I doubt that one acre in a hundred 
of rocky land — that is, land ribbed or dotted with 
rocks that the bar or the rock-hook cannot lift from 
their beds, and which it will not as yet pay to blast 
— is now tilled to profit, or ever will be until it shall 
be found advisable to clear them utterly of stone 
breaking through or rising within two feet of the sur- 
face. The time will doubtless arrive in which many 
fields will pay for clearing of stone that would not 
to-day ; these, I urge, should be given up to wood 
now, and kept wooded until the hour shall have struck 
for ridding them of every impediment to the steady 
progi'ess of both the surface and the subsoil plow. 

"Were all the rocky crests and rugged acclivities of 
this County bounteously wooded once more, and kept 
so for a generation, our fioods would be less injiiri- 



52 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

ous, our springs unfailing, and our streams more con- 
stant and equable ; our blasts would be less bitter, 
and our gales less destructive to fruit ; we should 
liave vastly more birds to delight us by their melody 
and aid us in our not very successful war with de- 
vouring insects; we should grow peaches, cherries, 
and other delicate fruits, which the violent caprices 
of our seasons, the remorseless devastations of our 
visible and invisible insect enemies, have all but an- 
nihilated ; and we should keep more cows and make 
more milk on two-thirds of the land now devoted to 
grass than we actually do from the whole of it. And 
what is true of Westchester is measurably true of 
every rural county in the Union. 

I have said that I believe in cutting trees as well 
as in growing them ; I have not said, and do not 
mean to say, that I believe in cutting everything 
clean as you go. That was once proper in Westches- 
ter ; it is still advisable in forest-covered regions, 
where the sun must be let in before crops can be 
grown ; but, in nine cases out of ten, timber should 
be thinned or culled out rather than cut off; and, for 
every tree taken away, at least two should be planted 
or set out. 

We have pretty well outgrown the folly of letting 
every apple-tree bear such fruit as it will ; though in 
the orchard of my father's little farm in Amherst, 
]^. H., whereon I was born, no tree had e ver been 
grafted when I bade adieu to it in 1820 ; and I pre- 
sume none has been to this day. By this time, almost 



GROWING TIMBER TREE-PLA:MTING. 53 

every farmer realizes tliat he canH afford to grow lit- 
tle, gnarly, villainously sour or detestably bitter- 
sweet apples, when, by duly setting a graft at a cost 
of two dimes, he may make that identical tree yield 
Greeniugs or Pippins at least as bounteously. I pre- 
sume the cumulative experience of fifty or sixty gen- 
ei'ations of apple-growers has ripened this conclusiou. 
Why do they not infer readily and generally that 
growing indiiferent timber where the best and most 
valued would grow as rapidly, is a stupid, costly 
blunder ? It seems to me that whoever has attained 
the conviction that apple-trees should be grafted 
ought to know that it is wasteful to grow Ked Oak, 
Beech, White Maple, and Alder, where White Oak, 
Hickory, Locust, and White Pine, might be grown 
with equal ficillty, in equal luxuriance, provided the 
right seeds were planted, and a little pains taken to 
keep down, for a year or two, the shoots spontaneously 
sent up by the wrong ones. 

North of the Potomac, and east of the Ohio, and 
(I presume) in limited districts elsewhere, rocky, 
sterile woodlands, costing $2 to $50 per acre accord- 
ing to location, etc., are to-day the cheapest property 
to be bouoht in the United States. Even thouo-h 
nothing were done with them but keep out fire and 
cattle, and let the young trees grow as they will, 
money can be more profit-ably and safely invested in 
lands covered by young timber than in anything else. 
The parent, who would invest a few thousands for 
the benefit of children or grandchildren still young. 



54 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

may buy woodlands which will be worth twenty 
times their present cost within the next twenty years. 
But better even than this would it be to buy up 
rocky, craggy, naked hill-sides and eminences which 
have been pastured to death, and, shutting out cat- 
tle inflexibly, scratch these over with plow, mattock, | 
hoe, or pick, as circumstances shall dictate, plant | 
them thickly with Chestnut, Walnut, Hickory, White 
Oak, and the seeds of Locust and White Pine. I 
say Locust, though not yet certain that this tree must 
not be started in garden or nursery-beds and trans- 
planted when two or three years old, so puny and 
feeble is it at the outset, and so likely to be smother- 
ed under leaves or killed out by its more favored 
neighbors. I have experiments in progress not yet 
matured, which may shed light on this point before 
I finish these essays. 

Plant thickly, and of diverse kinds, so as to cover 
the ground promptly and choke out weeds and shrubs, 
with full purpose to thin and prune as circumstances 
shall dictate. 

Many farmers are averse to planting timber, be- 
cause (they think) nothing can be realized therefrom 
for the next twenty or thirty years, which is as long 
\ as they expect to live. But this is a grave miscalcu- 
lation. Let us suppose a rocky, hilly pasture-lot of 
ten or twenty acres rudely scratched over as I have 
suggested, and thickly seeded with hickory nuts and 
white oak acorns only : within five years, it will 
yield abundantly of hoop-poles, though the better, 






GROWING- TIMBER ^TREE-PLAITTmG. 55 

more promising half be left to mature, as they 
should be ; two years later, another and larger crop 
of Loop-poles may be cut, still sparing the best ; and 
thenceforth a valuable crop of timber may be taken 
from that land ; for, if cut at the proper season, at 
least two thrifty sprouts will start from every stump ; 
and so that wood will yield a clear income each year 
while its best trees are steadily growing and matur- 
ing. I do not advise restriction to those two species 
of timber; but I insist that a young plantation of 
forest- trees may and should yield a clear income in 
every year after its fourth. 

As to the Far West — the Plains, the Parks, and the 
Great Basin — there is more money to be made by 
dotting them with groves of choice timber than by 
working the richest veins of the adjacent mountains. 
Whoever w*ill promptly start, near a present or pros- 
pective railroad, forty acres of choice trees — Hick- 
ory, White Oak, Locust, Chestnut, and White Pine 
— within a circuit of three hundred miles from Den- 
ver, on land which he has made or is making pro- 
vision to irrigate — may begin to sell trees therefrom 
two years hence, and persist in selling annually 
henceforth for a century — at first, for transplanting ; 
very soon, for a variety of uses in addition to that. 

— But this paper grows too long, and I must post- 
pone to the next my more especial suggestions to 
young farmers with regard to tree-planting. 



IX. 

PLANTING AND GROWING TEEES. 

"Whoever has recently bought, inlieritecl, or other- 
wise become the owner of a farm, has nsnallj found 
some part or parts of it devoted to wood ; and this, 
if not in excess, he will mainly preserve, while he 
studies and plans with a view to the ultimate devo- 
tion to timber of just those portions of his land that 
are best adapted to t]iat use. In locating that timber, 
I would have him consider these suo:2:estions : 

I. Land wisely planted with trees, and fenced so 
far as need be to keep out cattle, costs nothing. 
Wliatever else you grow involves labor and expendi- 
ture ; trees grow of their own accord. You may 
neglect them utterly — may wander over the earth 
and be absent for ten or twenty years, while your 
fences decay and your fields are overcro2:>ped to ex- 
haustion ; even your meadows may be run out by 
late mowing and close feeding at both ends of the 
season, till a dozen acres Vvill hardly subsist a span 
of horses and a cow ; but your woods need only to 
be let alone to insure that their value shall have de- 
cidedly increased during your absence. They will 
(56) 



PLANTING AND GEOWING TKEES. 67 

riclilj reward labor and care in thinning, trimming, 
and transplanting — yon may profitably employ in 
tliem any time tliat you can spare them — bnt they 
will do very well if simply let alone. And, unlike any 
other product with which I am acquainted, you may 
take ci'op after crop of wood from the same lot, and 
the soil will be richer and more productive after 
the last than it was before the first. Whether wholly 
because their roots permeate and break up the soil 
during their life and enrich it in their decay, or for 
diverse reasons, it is certainly true that land — and 
especially jpoor land — is enriched by growing upon 
it a crop of almost any timber, the evergreens pos- 
sibly excepted. So, should you ever have land that 
you cannot till to profit, whether because it is too 
poor, or because you have a sufiiciency that is better, 
you should at once devote it to wood. 

II. Your springs and streams will be rendered more 
equable and enduring by increasing the area and the 
luxuriance of your timber. They may have become 
scanty and capricious under a policy of reckless, whole- 
sale destruction of trees ; they will be reenforced and 
reinvigorated by doubling the area of your woods, 
while quadrupling the number, and increasing the 
average size, of your trees. 

III. All ravines and steep hill-sides should be 
devoted to trees. Every acre too rocky to be thor- 
oughly cleared of stone and plowed should be set 
apart for tree-growing. Wherever the soil vail be 
gullied or washed away by violent rains if under till- 



>tf 



58 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

age, it should be excluded from cultivation and 
given up to trees. Men often doubt tlie profit of heavy 
manuring; and well tbej may, if tliree-fourtbs of 
the fertilizers applied are soaked out and swept away 
by flooding rains or sudden thaws and floated off 
to some distant sea or bay; but let all that is ap- 
plied to the soil only remain there till it is carted 
away in crops, and it will hardly be possible to man- 
ure too highly for profit. 

lY. Trees, especially evergreens, may be so dis- 
posed as to modify agreeably the average temperature 
of your farm, or at least of the most important parts 
of it. When I bought my place — or rather the first 
installment of it — the best spot I could select for a gar- 
den lay at the foot of a hill which half surrounded it 
on the south and east, leaving it exposed to the full 
sweep of north and north-west winds ; so that, 
though the soil was gravelly and warm, my garden 
was likely to be cold and backward. To remedy 
this, I planted four rows of evergreens (Balsam Fir, 
Pine, Red Cedar, and Hemlock), along a low ridge 
bounding it on the north, following an inward curve 
of the ridge at its west end ; and those evergreens 
have in sixteen years grown into very considerable 
trees, forming a shady, cleanly, inviting bower, or 
sylvan retreat, daintily carpeted with the fallen 
leaves of the overhanging firs. I judge that the 
average temperature of the soil for some yards 
southward of this wind-break is at least five degrees 
higher, throughout the growing season, than it for- 



PLANTING AND GROWING TREES. 59 

merly was or would now be if these evergreens were 
swept away ; while the aspect of the place is agreea- 
bly diversified, and even beautified, by their appear- 
ance. I believe it would sell for some hundreds of 
dollars more with than without that thrifty, growing 
clump of evergreens. 

Y. I have already urged, though not strongly 
enough, that crops, as well as springs, will be im- 
proved by keeping the crests of ridges thickly 
wooded, thus depositing moisture in Winter and 
Spring, to be slowly yielded to the adjacent slopes 
during the heat and drouth of Summer. I firmly 
believe that the slopes of a hill whose crest is heavily 
wooded will yield larger average crops than slope 
and crest together would do if both were bare of 
trees. 

YI. The banks of considerable streams, ponds, etc., 
may often be so planted with trees that these will 
shade more water than land, to the comfort and 
satisfaction of the fish, and the protection of those 
banks from abrasion by floods and rapid currents. 
Sycamore, Elm, and Willow, do well here ; if choice 
Grape-Yines are set beside and allowed to run over 
some of them, the effect is good, and the grapes ac- 
ceptable to man and bird. 

YII. ITever forget that a good tree grows as thrift- 
ily and surely as a poor one. Many a farmer has to- 
day ten to forty acres of indifferent cord-wood where 
he might, at a very slight cost, have had instead 
an equal quantity of choice timber, worth ten times 



60 WHAT I ILNOW OF FAKMING. 

as much. Hickory, Cbestnut, and Walnut, while 
they yield nuts that can be eaten or sold, are worth 
far more as timber than an equal bulk of Beech, 
Birch, Hemlock, or Red Oak. Chestnut has moi'e 
than doubled in value within the last few years, 
mainly because it has been found excellent for the 
inside wood-work of dwellings. Locust also seems 
to be increasing in value. Ten acres of large, thrifty 
Locust near this City would now buy a pretty good 
farm ; as I presume it would, if located near any of 
our great cities. 

YIII. Wliere several good varieties of Timber are 
grown together, some insect or atmospheric trouble 
may blast one of them, yet leave the residue alive 
and hearty. And, if all continue thrifty, some may 
be cut out and sold, leaving others more room to 
grow and rapidly attain a vigorous maturity. 

IX. Wherever timber has become scarce and valua- 
ble, a wood-lot shonld be thinned out, nevermore 
cleared off, unless it is to be devoted to a different use. 
It seems to me that destroying a forest because we 
want timber is like smothering a hive of bees because 
we want honey. 

X. Timber shonld be cnt with intelligent reference 
to the future. Locnst and other valuable trees that 
it is desirable should throw np shoots from the 
stump, and rapidly reproduce their kind, should be 
cut in March or April ; while trees that you want 
to exterminate should be cut in August, so that they 
may not sprout. There may be exceptions to this 



PLANTDTG AND GEOWING TREES. 61 

rule ; but I do not happen to recollect any. Ever- 
greens do not sprout ; and I think these should be 
cut in Winter — at all events, not in Spring, when full 
of sap and thus prone to I'apid decaj^ 

XI. Your plantation will furnish pleasant and pro- 
fitable employment at almost any season. I doubt 
that any one in this country has ever yet bestowed so 
much labor and care on a young forest as it will 
amply reward. Sow your seeds thickly; begin to 
thin the young trees when they are a foot high, and 
to trim them so soon as they are three feet, and you 
may have thousands thriving on a fertile acre, and 
pushing their growth upward with a rapidity and to 
an altitude outrunning all preconception. 

XII. Springs and streams will soon appear where 
none have appeared and endured for generations, 
when we shall have reclothed the nakedness of the 
Plains w^ith adequate forests. Rains will become mod- 
erately frequent where they are now rare, and con- 
fined to the season when they are of least use to the 
husbandman. 

I may have more to say of trees by-and-by, but 
rest here for the present. The importance of the 
topic can hardly be overrated. 



X. 



DEAIOTNQ MY OWN. 

My farm is in the township of IN^ewcastle, "West- 
chester County, IS". Y., 35 miles from our City Hall, 
and a little eastward of the hamlet known as Chap- 
paqua, called into existence by a station on the Har- 
lem Railroad. It embraces the south-easterly half 
of the marsh which the railroad here traverses from 
south to north — my part measuring some fifteen 
acres, with five acres more of slightly elevated dry 
land between it and the foot of the rather rugged 
hill which rises thence on the east and on the south, 
and of which I now own some fifty acres, lying 
wholly eastward of my low land, and in good part 
covered with forest. Of this, I bought more than 
half in 1853, and the residue in bits from time to 
time as I could afford it. The average cost was be- 
tween $130 and $140 per acre : one small and poor 
old cottage being the only building I found on the 
tract, which consisted of the ragged edges of two 
adjacent farms, between the western portions of which 
mine is now interposed, while they still adjoin each 
other beyond the north and south road, half a mile 

(62) 



DEAINING — MY OWN. 63 

from the railroad, on which their buildings are located 
and which forms my eastern boundary. My stony, 
gravelly upland mainly slopes to the west ; but tM'o 
acres on my east line incline toward the road which 
bounds me in that direction, while two more on my 
south-east corner descend to the little brook which, 
entering at that corner, keeps irregularly near my 
south line, until it emerges, swelled by a smaller run- 
nel that enters my lowland from the north and tra- 
verses it to meet and pass off with the larger brook- 
let aforesaid. I have done some draining, to no great 
purpose, on the more level portions of my upland ; 
but my lowland has challenged my best efforts in 
this line, and I shall here explain them, for the en- 
couragement and possible guidance of novices in 
draining. Let me speak first of 

My Difficulties. — This marsh or bog consisted, 
when I first grappled with it, of some thirty acres, 
whereof I then owned less than a third. To drain it 
to advantage, one person should own it all, or the 
different owners should cooperate ; but I had to go 
it alone, with no other aid than a freely accorded 
privilege of straightening as well as deepening the 
brook which wound its way through the dryer mea- 
dow just below me, forming here the boundary of 
two adjacent farms. 1 spent $100 on this job, 
which is still imperfect ; but the first decided fall in 
the stream occurs nearly a mile below me ; and you 
tire easily of doing at your own cost work which 
benefits several others as much as yourself. My 



64 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

drainage will never be perfect till this brook, with 
that ftir larger one in which it is merged sixty rods 
below me, shall have been sunk three or four feet, at 
a further expense of at least $500. 

This bog or swamp, when I first bought into it, 
was mainly dedicated to the use of frogs, muskrats 
and snapping-turtles. A few small water-elms and 
soft maples grew upon it, with swamp alder partly 
fringing the western base of the hill east of it, where 
the rocks v/hich had, through thousands of years, 
rolled from the hill, thickly covered the surface, with 
springs bubbhng up around and among them. De- 
caying stumps and imbedded fragments of trees ar- 
gued that timber formerly covered this marsh as 
well as the encircling hills. A tall, dense growth of 
blackberry briers, thoroughwort, and all manner of 
marsh-weeds and grasses, covered the center of the 
swamp each Summer ; but my original portion of it, 
being too wet for these, was mainly addicted to 
hassocks or tussocks of wiry, worthless grass ; their 
matted roots rising in hard bunches a few inches 
above the soft, bare, encircling mud. The bog 
ranged in depth from a few inches to five or six 
feet, and was composed of black, peaty, vegetable 
mold, diversified by occasional streaks of clay or 
sand, all resting on a substratum of hard, coarse 
gravel, out of which two or three spi'ings bubbled 
up, in addition to the half a dozen which poured in 
from the east, and a tiny rivulet which (except in a 
very dry, hot time) added the tribute of three or 



DEAmiNG MY OWN. 65 

four more, wliicli sprang from the base of a higher 
shelf of the hill near the middle of what is now mj 
fiirm. Add to these that the brook which brawled 
and foamed down mj hill-side near mj south line as 
aforesaid, had brought along an immensity of pebbles 
and gravel of which it had mainly formed my live 
acres of dryer lowland, had thus built up a pretty 
swale, whereon it had the bad habit of filling up one 
chaimel, and then cutting another, more devious and 
eccentric, if possible, than any of its predecessors — 
and you have some idea of the obstacles I encoun- 
tered and resolved to overcome. One of my first 
substantial improvements was the cutting of a 
straight channel for this current and, by walling it 
with large stones, compelling the brook to respect 
necessary limitations. It was not my fault that some 
of those stones were set nearly upright, so as to veneer 
the brook rather than thoroughly constrain it : lience, 
some of the stones, undermined by strong currents, 
were pitched forward into the brook by high Spring 
freshets, so as to require resetting more carefully. 
This was a mistake, but not one of 

My Blunders. — These, the natural results of inex- 
perience and haste, were very grave. Not only had 
I had no real experience in draining wiien I began, 
but I could liire no foreman who knew much more of 
it than I did. I ought to have begun by securing an 
ample and sure fall where the water left my land, 
and next cut down the brooklet or open ditch into 
which I intended to drain to the lowest practicable 



6Q WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

point — so low, at least, that no drain running into it 
should ever be troubled with back-water. Nothing 
can be more useless than a drain in which water 
stagnates, choking it with mud. Then I should have 
bought hundreds of Hemlock or other cheap boards, 
slit them to a width of four or five inches, and, hav- 
ing opened the needed drains, laid these in the bot- 
tom and the tile thereupon, taking care to hreak joint, 
by covering the meeting ends of two boards with the 
middle of a tile. Laying tile in the soft mud of a 
bog, with nothing beneath to prevent their sinking, 
is simply throwing away labor and money. I cannot 
wonder that tile-draining seems to many a humbug, 
seeing that so many tile are laid so that they can 
never do any good. 

Having, by successive purchases, become owner of 
fully half of this swamp, and by repeated blunders 
discovered that making stone drains in a bog, while 
it is a capital mode of getting rid of the stone, is no 
way at all to dry the soil, I closed my series of ex- 
periments two years since by carefully relaying my 
generally useless tile on good strips of board, sinking 
them just as deep as I could persuade the water to 
run off freely, and, instead of allowing them to dis- 
charge into a brooklet or open ditch, connecting each 
with a covered main of four to six-inch tile ; these 
mains discharging into the running brook which 
drains all my farm and three or four of those above 
it just where it runs swiftly off from my land. If a 
thaw or heavy rain swells the brook (as it sometimes 



DRAINING — MY OWN. 67 

will) SO that it rises above my outlet aforesaid, the 
strong current formed by the concentration of the 
clear contents of so many drains will not allow the 
muddy water of the brook to back into it so many 
as three feet at most ; and any mud or sediment that 
may be deposited there will be swept out clean when- 
ever the brook shall have fallen to the drainage level. 
For this and similar excellent devices, I am indebted 
to the capital engineering and thorough execution of 
Messrs. Chickering & Gall, whose work on my place 
has seldom required mending, and never called for 
reconstruction. 

My Success. — I judge that there are not many tracts 
more difficult to drain than mine was, considering all 
the circumstances, except those which arc frequently 
flowed by tides or the waters of some lake or river. 
Had I owned the entire swamp, or had there been a 
fall in the brook just below me, had I had any prior 
ex^Derience in draining, or had others equally inter- 
ested cooperated in the good work, my task would 
have been comparatively light. As it was, I made 
mistakes which increased the cost and postponed the 
success of my efforts ; but this is at length complete. 
I had seven acres of Indian Corn, one of Corn Fod- 
der, two of Oats, and seven or eight acres of Grass, 
on my lowland in 1869 ; and, though the Spring 
months were quite rainy, and the latter part of 
Summer rather dry, my crops were all good. I did 
not see better in Westchester County ; and I shall be 
quite content with as good hereafter. Of my seven 



68 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMENG. 

hundred bushels of Corn (ears,) I judge that two- 
thirds would be accounted fit for seed anywhere ; 
my Grass was cut twice, and yielded one large crop 
and another heavier than the average first crop 
throughout our State. My drainage will require 
some care henceforth ; but the fifteen acres I have 
reclaimed from utter uselessness and obstructions are 
decidedly the best part of my farm. Uplands may 
be exhausted ; these never can be. 

The experience of another season (1870) of pro- 
tracted drouth has fully justified my most sanguine ex- 
pectations. I had this year four acres of Corn, and 
as many of Oats, on my swamp, with the residue in 
Grass ; and they were all good. I estimate my 
first Hay-crop at over two and a half tuns per acre, 
while the rowen or aftermath barely exceeded half a 
tun per acre, because of the severity of the drouth, 
which began in July and lasted till October. My 
Oats were good, but not remarkably so ; and I had 
810 bushels of ears of sound, ripe Corn fi'om four 
acres of drained swa>-mp and two and a half of up- 
land. I estimate my upland Corn at seventy (shelled) 
bushels, and my lowland at fifty-five (shelled) bushels 
per acre. Others, doubtless, had more, despite the 
unpropitious season ; but my crop was a fair one, and 
I am content with it. My upland Corn was heavily 
manured ; my lowland but moderately. There are 
many to tell you how much I lose by my farming* 
I only say that, as yet, no one else has lost a farthing 
by it, and I do not complain. 



XI. 



DEAIJSTN'G GENEKALLY. 

HAYDfa narrated my own experience in draining 
with entire unreserve, I here submit the general 
conclusions to which it has led me : 

I. While I doubt that there is any land above 
water that would not be improved by a good system 
of underdrains, I am sure that there is a great deal 
that could not at present be drained to profit. 
Forests, hill-side pastures, and most dry gravelly or 
sandy tracts, I place in this category. Perhaps one- 
third of New-England, half of the Middle States, 
and three-fourths of the Mississippi Yalley, may ulti- 
mately be drained with profi.t. 

II. All swamp lands without exception, nearly all 
clay soils, and a majority of the flat or gently roll- 
ing lands of this country, must eventually be drained, 
if they are to be tilled with the best results. I doubt 
that there is a garden on earth that would not be 
(unless it already had been) improved by thorough 
underdraining. 

III. The uses of underdrains are many and di- 
verse. To carry off surplus water, though the most 

(69) 



70 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

obvious, stands bj no means alone. 1. TJnderdrained 
laad may be plowed and sowed considerably earlier 
in Spring tlian undi-ained soil of like quality. 2. 
Drained fields lose far less tlian others of their 
fertiUty by washing. 3. They are not so liable to be 
gullied by sudden thaws or flooding rains. 4. "Where 
a field has been deeply subsoiled, I am confident that 
it will remain mellow and permeable by roots longer 
than if undrained. 5. Less water being evaporated 
from drained than from undrained land, the soil will 
be warmer throughout the growing season ; hence, 
the crop will be heavier, and will mature earlier. 6. 
Being more porous and less compact, I think the soil 
of a drained field retains more moisture in a season of 
drouth, and its growing plants sufier less therefrom, 
than if it were undrained. In short, I thoroughly 
believe in underdraiuing. 

IV. Yet I advise no man to run into debt for drain- 

V 

ing, as I can imagine a mortgage on a farm so heavy 
and pressing as to be even a greater nuisance than 
stagnant water in its soil. Labor and tile are dear 
with us ; I do not expect that either will ever be so 
cheap here as in England or Belgium. What I 
would have each farmer in moderate circumstances 
do is to drain his wettest field next Fall — that is, after 
finishing his haying and before cutting up his corn — 
taldng care to secure abundant fall to carry oif the 
water in time of flood, and doing his work tho- 
roughly. Having done this, let him subsoil deeply, 
fertilize amply, till carefully, and watch the result. 



DRAINmG GENEEALLT. 71 

I think it will soon satisfy him that such draining 
pays. 

Y. I do not insist on tile as making the only good 
drain ; but I have had no success with any other. 
The use of stone, in my opinion, is only justified 
where the field to be drained abounds in them and 
no other use can be made of them. To make a good 
drain with ordinary boulders or cobble-stones re- 
quires twice the excavation and involves twice the 
labor necessarily expended on tile-draining ; and it is 
neither so effective nor so durable. Earth will be 
carried by water into a stone drain ; rats and other 
vermin will burrow in it and dig (or enlarge) holes 
thence to the surface ; in short, it is not the thing. 
Better drain with stone where they are a nuisance 
than not at all ; but I predict that you will dig them 
up after giving them a fair trial and replace them 
with tile. In a wooded country, where tile were 
scarce and dear, I should try draining with slabs or 
cheap boards dressed to a uniform width of six or 
eight inches, and laid in a ditch dug with banks in- 
clined or sloped to the bottom, so as to form a sort 
of Y ; the lower edge of the two side-slabs coming 
together at the bottom, and a third being laid widely 
across their upper edges, so as to form a perfect cap 
or cover. In firm, hard soil, this would prove an 
efficient drain, and, if well made, would last twenty 
years. Uniformity of temperature and of moisture 
would keep the slabs tolerably sound for at least so 
long; and, if the top of this drain were two feet 



72 WHAT I KNOW OF FAIIMI]!^G. 

below the surface, no plowing or trampling over it 
would harm it. 

YI. As to draining by what is called a Mole Plow, 
which simply makes a waterway through the subsoil 
at a depth of three feet or thereabout, I have no 
acquaintance with it but by hearsay. It seems to. 
me morally impossible that drains so made should 
not be lower at some points than at others, so as to 
retain their fill of water instead of carrying it rap- 
idly off ; and I am sure that plowing, or even carting 
heavy loads over them, must gradually choke and 
destroy them. Yet this kind of draining is compara- 
tively so cheap, and may, with a strong team, be ef- 
fected so rapidly, that I can account for its popular- 
ity, especially in prairie regions. Where the subsoil 
is rocky, it is impracticable ; where it is hard-pan, it 
must be very difficult ; where it is loose sand, it can- 
not endure ; but in clays or heavy loams, it may, for 
a few years, render excellent service. I wish the 
heavy clays of Yermont, more especially of the 
Champlain basin, were well furrowed or pierced by 
even such drains ; for I am confident that they 
would temporarily improve both soil and crop ; and, 
if they soon gave out, they would probably be re- 
placed by others more durable. 

— I shall not attempt to give instructions in drain- 
making ; but I urge every novice in the art to pro- 
cure Yf aring's or some other work on the subject and 
study it carefully : then, if he can obtain at a fair' 
price the services of an experienced drainer, hire him 



! 

i 



DRAINING GENERALLY. 73 

to supervise the work. One point only do I insist on 
— that is, draining* into a main rather than an open 
ditch or brook ; for it is difficult in this or any 
harsher chmate to prevent the crumbhno; of your 
outlet tile by frost. Below the Potomac or the Ar- 
kansas, this may not be apprehended ; and there it 
may be best to have your drains separately discharge 
from a roadside bank or into an open ditch, as they 
will thus inhale more air, and so help (in Summer) 
to warm and moisten the soil above them ; but in our 
climate I believe it better to let your drains discharge 
into a covered main or mains as aforesaid, than into 
an open ditch or brook. 

Tile and labor are dear with us ; I presume labor 
will remain so. But, in our old States, there are 
often laborers lacking employment in November and 
the Winter months ; and it is the wisest and truest 
charity to proffer them pay for work. Some will re- 
ject it unless the price be exorbitant ; but there are 
scores of the deserving poor in almost every rural 
county, who would rather earn a dollar per day than 
hang around the grog-shops waiting for Spring. Get 
your tiles when you can, or do not get them at all, but 
let it be widely known that you have work for those 
who wiU do it for the wages you can afford, and you 
will soon have somebody to earn your money. Hav- 
ing staked out your drains, set these to work at dig- <! 
ging them, even though you should not be able to 
tile them for a year. Cut your outlet deep, and your 
land will profit by a year of open drains. 
4 



XII. 

IRRIGATION — MEANS AND ENDS. 

"While few can have failed to realize the important 
part played by "Water in the economy of vegetation, 
I jndge that the question — " How can I secure to my 
growing plants a sufficiency of moisture at aU 
times'^" — has not always presented itself to the farm- 
er's mind as demanding of him a practical solution. 
To rid his soil and keep it free of superfluous, but 
especially of stagnant water, he may or may not 
accept as a necessity; but that, having provided for 
draining away whatever is excessive, he should turn 
a short corner and begin at once to provide that 
water shall be supplied to his fields and plants when- 
ever they may need it, he is often slow to apprehend. 
Yet this provision is but the counterpart and com- 
plement of the other. 

I had sped across Europe to Venice, and noted with 
interest the admirable, effective irrigation of the 
great plain of Lombardy, before I could call any land 
my own. I saw there a region perhaps thirty' miles 
wide by one hundred and fifty along the east bank 
of the Po, rising very gently thence to the foot of the 

(74) 



IRRIGATION MEANS AND ENDS. 75 

Austrian Alps, which Providence seems to have 
specially adapted to be improved by irrigation. The 
torrents of melted snow which in Spring leap and 
foam adown the southern face of the Alps, bringing 
with them the finer particles of soil, are suddenly 
arrested and form lakes (Garda, Maggiore, Como, 
etc.) just as they emerge upon the plain. These 
lakes, slowly rising, often overflow their banks, with 
those of the small rivers that bear their waters west- 
ward to the Po ; and this overflow was a natural 
source of abiding fertility. To dam these outlets, , 
and thus control their currents, was a very simple 
and obvious device of long ago, and was probably 
begun by a very few individuals (if by more than 
one), whose success incited emulation, until the pres- 
ent extensive and costly system of irrigating dams 
and canals was gradually developed. "When I trav- 
ersed Lombardy in July, 1851, the beds of streams 
naturally as large as the Pemigewasset, BattenkiU, 
Canada Creek, or Humboldt, were utterly dry; the 
water w^hich would naturally have flowed therein 
being wholly transferred to an irrigating canal (or to 
canals) often two or three miles distant. The reser- 
voirs thus created were filled in Spring, when the 
streams were fullest and their water richest, and 
gradually drawn upon throughout the later growing 
season to cover the carefully leveled and graded fields 
on either side to the depth of an inch or two at a 
time. If any failed to be soon absorbed by the soil, 
it was drawn ofl* as here superfluous, and added to 



7*6 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

the current employed to moisten and fertilize tlie 
field next below it ; and so field after field was re- 
freshed and enriched, to the husbandman's satisfaction 
and profit. It may be that the rich glades of English 
Lancashire bear heavier average crops ; but those of 
Lombardy are rarely excelled on the globe. 

"Why should not our Atlantic slope have its Lom- 
bardy? Utah, E"evada, and California, exhibit raw, 
crude suggestions of such a system ; but why should 
the irrio-ation of the New World be confined to 
regions where it is indispensable, when that of the 
Old is not ? I know no good reason whatever for 
leaving an American field unirrigated where water 
to fiow it at will can be had at a moderate cost. 

When I first bought land (in 1853) I fuUy purpos- 
ed to provide for irrigating my nearly level acres at 
will, and I constructed two dams across my upland 
stream with that view ; but they were so badly 
planned that they went off in the flood caused by a 
tremendous rain the next Spring; and, though I 
rebuilt one of them, I submitted to a miscalculation 
which provided for taking the water, by means of a 
syphon, out of the pond at the top and over the bank 
that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the surface of 
the water. Of course, air would work into the pipe 
after it had carried a stream unexceptionably for two 
or three days, and then the water would run no longer. 
Had I taken it from the bottom of the pond through 
my dam, it would have run forever, (or so long as 
there was water covering its inlet in the pond ;) but 



IRRIGATION MEANS AND ENDS. 77 

bad engineering flung me ; and I have never since 
had the heart (or the means) to revise and correct its 
errors. 

Mj next attempt was on a much humbler scale, 
and I engineered it myself. Toward the north end 
of my farm, the hill-side which rises east of my low- 
land is broken by a swale or terrace, which gives me 
three or four acres of tolerably level upland, along 
the upper edge of which five or six springs, which 
never wholly fail, burst from the rocks above and 
unite to form a petty runnel, which dries up in very- 
hot or dry weather, but which usually preserved a 
tiny stream to be lost in the swamp below, l^orth of 
the gully cut down the lower hill-side by this stream- 
let, the hill-side of some three acres is quite steep, 
still partially wooded, and wholly devoted to pastur- 
age. Making a petty dam across this runnel at the 
top of the lower acclivity, I turned the stream aside, 
so that it should henceforth run along the crest of 
this lower hill, falling off gradually so as to secure a 
free current, and losing its contents at intervals 
through variable depressions in its lower bank. Dam 
and artificial water-course together cost me $90, which 
was about twice what it should have been. That 
rude and petty contrivance has now been ten years 
in operation, and may have cost $5 per ^nnum for 
oversight and repairs. Its effect has been to double 
the grass grown on the two acres it constantly irri- 
gates, for which I paid $280, or more than thrice the 
cost of my irrigation. But more : my hill-side, while 



78 WHAT I ENOW OF FARMING. 

it was well grassed in Spring, always gave out direct- 
ly after the first dry, or hot week ; so that, when I 
most needed feed, it aiforded none ; its herbage being 
parched up and dead, and thus remaining till refresh- 
ed by generous rains. I judge, thei^efore, that my 
irrigation has tyiotg than doubled the product of those 
two acres, and that these are likely to lose nothing in 
yield or value so long as that petty irrigating ditch 
fihall be maintained. 

I know this is small business. But suppose each 
of the hundred thousand New-England farms, where- 
of five to ten acres might be thus irrigated at a cost 
not exceeding $100 per farm, had been similarly 
prepared to flow those acres last Spring and early 
Summer, with an average increase therefrom of 
barely one tun of Hay (or its equivalent in pasturage) 
per acre. The 500,000 tuns of Hay thus realized 
would have saved 200,000 head of cattle from being 
sent to the butcher while too thin for good beef, 
while every one of them was required for further 
use, and will have to be replaced at a heavy cost 
Shall not these things be considered ? Shall not all 
who can do so at moderate cost resolve to test on 
their own farms the advantages and benefits that 
may be secured by Irrigation % 



XIII. 

THE POSSIBILITIES OF IRRIGATION. 

I HAYE given an account of my poor, little experi- 
ment in Irrigation, because it is one which almost 
every farmer can imitate and improve upon, however 
narrow his domain and slender his fortune. I pre- 
sume there are Half a Million homesteads in the 
United States which have natural facilities for Irri- 
gation at least equal to mine; many of them far 
greater. Along either slope of the Alleghenies, 
throughout a district at least a thousand miles long 
by three hundred wide, nearly every farm might be 
at least partially irrigated by means of a dam costing 
from twenty-live to one hundred dollars ; so might 
at least half the farms in JSTew-England and our own 
State. On the prairies, the plans must be different, 
and the expense probably greater, but the results ob- 
tained would bounteously reward the outlay. I shall 
not see the day, but there are those now living who 
will see it, when Artesian wells will be dug at points 
where many acres may be flowed from a gentle swell 
in the midst of a vast plain, or at the head of a fertile 
valley, expressly, or at least mainly, that its waters 

(79) 



80 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

may be led across tLat plain, adown that valley, in 
irrigating streams and ditches, until they have been 
wholly drank up by the soih I have seen single wells 
in Cahfornia that might be made to irrigate suffici- 
ently hundreds of acres, by the aid of a reservoir into 
which their waters could be discharged when the soil 
did not require them, and there retained until the 
thirsty earth demanded them. 

An old and successful farmer in my neighborhood 
affirms that Water is the cheapest and best fertilizer 
ever applied to the soil. If this were understood to 
mean that no other is needed or can be profitably 
applied, it would be erroneous. Still, I think it 
clearly true that the annual product of most farms 
can be increased, and the danger of failure averted, 
more cheaply by the skillful application of water than 
by that of any other fertilizer whatever. Plaster 
(Gypsum) possibly excepted. 

I took a run through Virginia last Summer, not far 
from the 1st of August. That State was then suffer- 
ing intensely from drouth, as she continued to do for | 
some weeks thereafter. I am quite sure that I saw 
on her thirsty plains and hillsides not less than three 
hundred thousand acres planted with Indian Corn, 
whereof the average product could not exceed ten 
bushels per acre, while most of it would fall far below 
that yield, and there were thousands of acres that 
would not produce one sound ear ! Every one deplor- 
ed the failure, correctly attributing it to the prevail- 
ing drouth. And yet, I passed hundreds if not 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF IRRIGATION. 81 

thousands of places where a very moderate outlay 
would have sufficed to dam a stream or brooklet issu- 
ing from between two spurs of the Blue Ridge, or the 
AUeghenies, so that a refreshing current of the copious 
and fertilizing floods of AYinter and Spring, warmed 
by the fervid suns of June and July, could have been 
led over broad fields lying below, so as to vanquish 
drouth and insure generous harvests. ISTay ; I feel 
confident that I could in many places have construc- 
ted rude works in a week, after that drouth began to 
be felt, that would have saved and made the Corn on 
at least a portion of the planted acres through which 
the now shrunken brooks danced and laughed idly 
down to the larger streams in the wider and equally 
thirsty valleys. Of course, I know that this would 
have been imperfect irrigation — a mere stop-gap — • 
that the cold spring- water of a parched Summer can- 
not fertilize as the hill -wash of Winter and Spring, if 
thriftily garnered and warmed through and through 
for sultry weeks, would do ; yet I believe that very 
many farmers might, even then, have secured partial 
crops by such irrigation as was still possible, had they, 
even at the eleventh hour, done their best to retrieve 
the errors of the past. 

For the present, I would only counsel every farmer 
to give his land a careful scrutiny with a view to ir- 
rio:ation in the future. No one is obliged to do anv 
faster than his means will justify; and yet it may be 
well to have a clear comprehension of all that may 
ultimately be done to profit, even though much of 

4* 



82 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

it must long remain nnattempted. In many cases, 
a stream may be dammed for the power which it will 
afford for two or three months of each year, if it 
shall ajppear that this use is quite consistent with its 
employment to irrigation, when the former alone 
would not justify the requisite outlay. It is by thus 
making one expense subserve two quite independent 
but not inconsistent purposes that success is attained 
in other pursuits ; and so it may be in farming. 

As yet, each farmer must study his own resources 
with intent to make the most of them. If a manage- 
able stream crosses or issues from his land, he must 
measure its fall thereon, study the lay of the land, 
and determine whether he can or cannot, at a toler- 
able cost, make that stream available in the irriga- 
tion of at least a portion of his growing crops when 
they shall need water and the skies decline to supply 
it. On many, I think on most, farms situated among 
hills, or upon the slopes of mountains, something 
may be done in this way — done at once, and with 
immediate profit. But this is rudimentary, partial, 
fragmentary, when compared with the irrigation which 
yet shall be. I am confident that there are points on 
the Carson, the Humboldt, the Weber, the South 
Platte, the Cache-le-Poudre, and many less noted 
streams which thrid the central plateau of our conti- 
nent, where an expenditure of $10,000 to $50,000 
may be judiciously made in a dam, locks and canals, 
for the purposes of irrigation and milling combined, 
with a moral certainty of realizing fifty per cent, an- 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF IRRIGATION 83 

nually on the outlay, witli a steady increase in tlie 
value of the property. If my eye did not deceive 
me, there is one point on the Carson where a dam 
that need not cost $50,000 would irrigate one hundred 
square miles of rich plain which, when I saw it eleven 
years ago, grew nought but the worthless shrubs of the 
desert, simply because nothing else could endure the 
intense, abiding drouth of each J^evada Summer. 
Such palpable invitations to thrift cannot remain for- 
ever unimproved. 

In regions like this, where Summer rains are the 
rule rather than the exception, the need of irrigation 
is not so palpable, since we do or may secure decent 
average crops in its absence. Yet there is no farm 
in our country that would not yield considerably 
more grain and more grass, more fruit and more veg- 
etables, if its owner had water at command which 
he could apply at pleasure and to any extent he should 
deem requisite. Most men, thus empowered, would 
at first irrigate too often and too copiously ; but ex- 
perience would soon temper their zeal, and teach 
them 

" The precious art of Not too much ; " 

and they would thenceforth be careful to give theii* 
soil drink yet^ not drown it. 

Whoever lives beyond the close of this century, 
and shall then traverse our prairie States, will see 
them whitened at intervals by the broad sails of 
windmills erected over wells, whence every gale or 



84 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

breeze will be employed in pumping water into the 
ponds or reservoirs so located that water may be 
drawn therefrom at will and diffused in gentle 
streamlets over the surrounding fields to invigorate 
and impel their growing crops. And, when all has 
been done that this paper faintly foreshadows, our 
people will have barely indicated, not by any means 
exhausted, the beneficent possibilities of irrigation. 

The difficulty is in making a beginning. Too 
many farmers would fain conceal a poverty of 
thought behind an affectation of dislike or contempt 
for novelties. " Humbug ! " is their stereotyped 
comment on every suggestion that they might wisely 
and profitably do something otherwise than as their 
grandfathers did. They assume that those respected 
ancestors did very well without Irrigation ; where- 
fore, it cannot now be essential. But the circum- 
stances have materially changed. The disappear- 
ance of the dense, high woods that formerly almost 
or quite surrounded each farm has given a sweep 
to the heated, parching winds of Summer, to which 
our ancestors were strangers. Our springs, our 
streams, do not hold out as they once did. • Our 
Summer drouths are longer and fiercer. Even 
though our grandfathers did not, we do need and 
may profit by Irrigation. 



XIY. 

PLOWING DEEP OR SHALLOW. 

Rules absolutely without exception are rare ; and 
they who imagine that I insist on plowing all lands 
deeply are wrong for I hold that much land should 
never be plowed at all. In fact, I have seen in my 
life nearly as large an area that ought not as I have 
that ought to be plowed, by which I mean that half 
the land I have seen may serve mankind better if de- 
voted to timber than if subjected to tillage. I per- 
sonally know farmers who would thrive far better 
if they tilled but half the area they do, bestowing on 
this all the labor and fertilizers they spread over the 
whole, even though they threw the residue into com- 
mon and left it there. I judge that a majority of our 
farmers could increase the recompense of their toil 
by cultivating fewer acres than they now do. 

Nor do I deny that there are soils which it is not 
advisable to plow deeply. Prof Mapes told me he 
had seen a tract in West Jersey whereof the soil was 
but eight inches deep, resting on a stratum of cop- 
peras (sulphate of iron,) which, being upturned by 
the plow and mingled with the soil, poisoned the 

(85) 



86 WHAT I KXOW OF FARMIXO. 

crops pla^ited thereon. And I saw, last Summer, on 
the intervale of 'New River, in the western part of 
Old Virginia, many acres of Corn which were thrifty 
and luxuriant in spite of shallow plowing and in- 
tense drouth, because the rich, black loam which had 
there been deposited by semi-annual inundations, 
until its depth ranged from two to twenty feet, was so 
inviting and permeable that the corn-roots ran helow 
the bottom of the furrow about as readily as above 
that line. I do not doubt that there are many mil- 
lions of acres of such land that would produce tol- 
erably, and sometimes bounteously, though simply 
scratched over by a brush harrow and never plowed 
at all. In the infancy of our race, when there were 
few mouths to fill and when farming implements 
were very rude and ineffective, cultivation was all 
but confined to these facile strips and patches, so 
that the utility, the need, of deep tillage was not ap- 
parent. And yet, we Imow the crops often failed 
utterly in those days, plunging whole nations into 
the miseries of famine. 

The primitive plow was a forked stick or tree-top, 
whereof one prong formed the coulter, the other and 
longer the beam; and he who first sharpened the 
coulter-prong with a stone hatchet was the Whitney 
or McCormick of his day. The plow in common use 
to-day in Spain or Turkey is an improvement on 
this, for it has an iron point ; still, it is a miserable 
tool. When, at five years old, I first rode the horse 
which drew my father's plow in furrowing for or culti- 



PLOWING DEEP OR SHALLOW. 87 

vating his corn, it had an iron coulter and an iron 
share ; but it was mainly composed of wood. La the 
hard, rocky soil of I^ew-Hampshire, as full of bowl- 
ders and pebbles as a Christmas pudding is of plums, 
plowing with such an implement was a sorry business 
at best. My father hitched eight oxen and a horse 
to his plow when he broke up pebbly green-sward, 
and found an acre of it a very long day's work. I 
hardly need add that subsoiling was out of the ques- 
tion, and that six inches was the average depth of his 
furrow. 

I judge that the best Steel Plows now in use do 
twice the execution that his did with a like expendi- 
ture of power — that we can, with equal power, plow 
twelve inches as easily and rapidly as he plowed six. 
Ought we to do it ? Will it pay ? 

I first farmed for myself in 1845 on a plat of eight 
acres, in what was then the open country skirting the 
East River nearly abreast the lower point of Black- 
well's Island, near Fiftieth-st., on a little indentation 
of the shore known as Turtle Bay. 'None of the 
Avenues east of Third was then opened above Thir- 
tieth-st. ; and the neighborhood, though now perfor- 
ated by streets and covered with houses, was as rural 
and secluded as heart could wish. One fine Spring 
morning, a neighbor called and offered to plow for 
$5 my acre of tillage not cut. up by rows of box and 
other shrubs ; and I told him to go ahead. I came 
home next evening, just as he was finishing the job, 
which I contemplated most ruefully. His plow was 



88 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

a pocket edition ; his team a single horse ; his furrows 
at most five inches deep. I paid him, but told him 
plainly that I would have preferred to give the 
money for nothing. He insisted that he had plowed 
for me as he plowed for others all around me. '' I 
will tell you," I rejoined, " exactty how this will work. 
Throughout the Spring and early Summer, we shall 
have frequent rains and moderate heat : thus far, my 
crops will do well. But then will come hot weeks, 
with little or no rain ; and they will dry up this 
shallow soil and every thing planted thereon," 

The result signally justified my prediction. We 
had frequent rains and cloudy, mild weather, till the 
1st of July, when the clouds vanished, the sun came 
out intensely hot, and we had scarcely a sprinkle till 
the 1st of September, by which time my Corn and 
Potatoes had about given up the ghost. Like the 
seed which fell on stony ground in the Parable of the 
Sower, that which I had planted had withered away 
*^ because there was no root ;" and my prospect for a 
harvest was utterly blighted, where, with twelve 
inches of loose, fertile, well pulverized earth at their 
roots, my crops would have been at least respectable. 
When I became once more a farmer in a small way 
on my present place, I had not forgotten the lesson, 
and I tried to have plowed deeply and thoroughly 
so much land as I had plowed at all. My first Sum- 
mer here (1853) was a very dry one, and crops failed 
in consequence around me and all over the country ; 
yet mine were at least fair ; and I was largely indebt- 



PLOWING DEEP OR SHALLOW. 89 

ed for them to relatively deep plowing. I ha ve since 
suffered from frost (on my low land), from the rotting 
of seed in the ground, from the ravages of insects, 
etc. ; but never by drouth ; and I am entirely confi- 
dent that Deep Plowing has done me excellent ser- 
vice. My only trouble has been to get it done ; for 
there are apt to be reasons — (haste, lateness in the 
season, etc.) — for plowing sliallowly for "just this 
time," with full intent to do henceforth better. 

I close this paper with a statement made to me by 
an intelligent British farmer living at Maidstone, 
south of England. He said : 

" A few years ago there came into my hands a field 
of twelve acres, which had been an orchard ; but the 
trees were hopelessly in their dotage. They must be 
(;ut down ; then their roots must be grubbed out ; so 
I resolved to make a clean job of it, and give the field 
a thorough trenching. Choosing a time in Autumn 
or early Winter when labor was abundant and cheap, 
I had it turned over three spits (27 inches) deep ; the 
lowest being merely reversed ; the next reversed and 
placed at the top ; the surface being reversed and 
placed below the second. The soil was strong and 
deep, as that of an orchard should be ; I planted the 
field to Garden Peas, and my first picking was very 
abundant. About the time that peas usually begin to 
wither and die, the roots of mine struck the rich soil 
which had been the first stratum, but was now the 
second, and at once the stalks evinced a new life — ■ 



90 WHAT I KNOW OF FARlMIIsG. 

threw out new blossomsj wliicli were followed by 
pods ; and so kept on blossoming and forming peas 
for weeks, until this first crop far more than paid the 
cost of trenching and cultivation." 

Thus far my English friend. Who will this year 
try a patch of Peas on a plat made rich and mellow 
for a depth of at least two feet, and frequently moist- 
ened in Summer by some rude kind of irrigation ? 

The fierceness of our Summer suns, when not 
counteracted by frequent showers, shortens deplor- 
ably the productiveness of many Yegetables and 
Berries. Our Strawberries bear well, but too brief- 
ly ; our Peas wither up and cease to blossom after 
they have been two or three weeks plump enough 
to pick. Our Paspberries, Blackberries, etc., fruit 
well, but are out of bearing too soon after they begin 
to yield their treasures. I am confident that this 
need not be. With a deep, rich soil, kept moistened 
by a periodical flow of water, there need not and 
should not be any such haste to give over blooming 
and bearing. The fruit is ITature's attestation of 
the geniality of the season, the richness and abun- 
dance of the elements inhering in the soil or supplied 
to it by the water. Double the supply of these, and 
sterility should be postponed to a far later day than 
that in which it is now inaugurated. 



XV. 



PLOWING GOOD AND BAD. 



There are so many wrong ways to do a thing to 
but one right one that there is no reason in the im- 
patience too often evinced with those who contrive 
to swallow the truth wrong end foremost, and there- 
upon insist that it won't do. For instance : A farmer 
hears something said of deep plowing, and, without 
any clear understanding of or firm faith in it, resolves 
to give it a trial. So he buys a great plow, makes up 
a strong team, and proceeds to turn up a field hitherto 
plowed but six inches to a depth of a foot : in other 
words, to bury its soil under six inches of cold, sterile 
clay, sand, or gravel. On this, he plants or sows 
grain, and is lucky indeed if he realizes half a crop. 
Hereupon, he reports to his neighbors that Deep 
Plowing is a humbug, as he suspected all along ; but 
now he knows, for he has tried it. There are several 
other wrong ways, which I will hurry over, in order 
to set forth that wdiich I regard as the right one. 

Here is a middling farmer of the old school, who 
w^alks carefully in the footsteps of his respected 
grandfather, but with inferior success, because sixty 

(90 



92 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

annual harvests, thougli not particularly luxuriant, 
liave partially exhausted the productive capacity of 
the acres he inherited. He now garners from fifteen 
to thirty bushels per acre of Corn, from ten to twenty 
of "Wheat, from fifteen to twenty of Rye, from twenty 
to thirty of Oats,* and from a tun to a tun and a half 
of Hay, as the season proves more or less propitious, 
and just contrives to draw from his sixty to one 
hundred acres a decent subsistence for his family ; 
plowing, as his father and grandfather did, to a 
depth of five to seven inches : What can Deep Plow- 
ing do for him f 

I answer — By itself, nothing whatever. If in 
every other respect he is to persist in doing just as 
his father and his grandfather did, I doubt the ex- 
pediency of doubling the depth of his furrows. 
True, the worst effects of the change would be re- 
alized at the outset, and I feel confident that his 
six inches of subsoil, having been made to change 
places with that which formerly rested upon it, must 
gradually be wrought upon by air, and rain, and 
frost, until converted into a tolerably productive 
soil, through which the roots of most plants would 
easily and speedily make their way down to the 
richer stratum which, originally surface, has been 
transposed into subsoil. But this exchange of posi- 
tions between the original surface and subsoil is not 
what I mean by Deep Plowing, nor anything like it. 
What 1 do mean is this : 

Having thoroughly underdrained a field, so that 



PLOWING — GOOD AND BAD. 93 

water wilJ not stand upon any part of its surface, no 
matter hew mncli may there be deposited, the next 
step in order is to increase the depth of the soil. To 
this end, procure a regular sub-soil plow of the most 
approved pattern, attach to it a strong team, and let 
it follow the breaking-plow in its furrow, lifting and 
pulverizing the sub-soil to a depth of not less than 
six inches, but leaving it in position exactly where it 
was. The surface-plow turns the next furrow upon 
this loosened sub-soil, and so on till the whole field is 
thus pulverized to a depth of not less than twelve 
inches, or, better still, fifteen. Now, please remem- 
ber that you have twice as much soil per acre to 
fertilize as there was before ; hence, that it conse- 
quently requires tAvice as much manure, and you will 
have laid a good foundation for increased crops. I 
do not say that all the additional outlay will be re- 
turned to you in the increase of your next crop, for I 
do not believe anything of the sort ; but I do believe 
that this crop will be considerably larger for this 
generous treatment, especially if the season prove re- 
markably dry or uncommonly wet ; and that you will 
have insured better crops in the years to come, in- 
cluding heavier grass, after that field shall once more 
be laid down ; and that, in case of the planting of 
that field to fruit or other trees, they will grow faster, 
resist disease better, and thrive longer, than if the 
soil were still plowed as of old. (I shall insist here- 
after on the advantage and importance of subsoiling 
orchards.) 



94: WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMtNG. 

Take another aspect — that of subsoiling hill-sides 
to prevent their abrasion by water : 

I have two bits of warm, gravelly hill-side, which 
bountifully yield Corn, Wheat and Oats, but which 
are addicted to washing. I presume one of these 
bits, at the south-east corner of my farm, has been 
plowed and planted not less than one hundred times, 
and that at least half the fertilizers applied to it have 
been washed into the brook, and hence into the Hud- 
son. To say that $1,000 have thus been squandered 
on that patch of ground, would be to keep far within 
the truth. And, along with the fertilizers, a large 
portion of the finer and better elements of the ori- 
ginal soil have thus been swept into the brook, and 
so lavished upon the waters of our bay. But, since 
I had those lots thoroughly subsoiled, all the water 
that falls upon them when in tillage sinks into the 
soil, and remains there until drained away by filtra- 
tion or evaporation ; and I never saw a particle of 
soil washed from either save once, when a thaw of 
one or two inches on the surface, leaving the ground 
solidly frozen beneath, being quickly followed by a 
pouring rain, washed away a few bushels of the 
loosened and sodden surface, proving that the law by 
virtue of which these fields were formerly denuded 
while in cultivation is still active, and that Deep 
Plov/ing is an efiective and all but unfailing antidote 
for the evil it tends to incite. 

We plow too many acres annually, and do not plow 
them so thoroughly as we ought. In the good time 



PLOWING GOOD AND BAD. 95 

coming, wlien Steam shall have been so harnessed to 
a gang of six to twelve ploAVS that, with one man 
guiding and firing, it will move as fast as a man 
ought to walk, steaming on and thoroughly pulver- 
izing from twelve to twenty-five acres per day, I be- 
heve we shall plow at least two feet deep, and plow 
not less than twice before putting in any crop what- 
ever. Then we may lay down a field in the confi- 
dent trust that it will yield from two and a half to 
three tuns of good hay per animm for the next ten 
or twelve years ; while, by the help of irrigation and 
occasional top-dressing, it may be made to average 
at least three tuns for a life-time, if not forever. 

When my Grass-land requires breaking up — as it 
sometimes does — I understand that it was not prop- 
erly laid down, or has not been been well treated 
since. A good grazing farmer once insisted in my 
hearing that grass-land should never be plowed — that 
the vegetable mold forming the surface, when the 
timber was first cut ofiP, should remain on the surface 
forever. Considering how uneven the stumps and 
roots and cradle-knolls of a primitive forest are apt 
to leave the ground, I judge that this is an extreme 
statement. But land once thoroughly plowed and 
subsoiled ought thereafter to be kept in grass by 
liberal applications of Gypsum, well-cured Muck, 
and barn-yard Manure to its surface, without needing 
to be plowed again and reseeded. Put back in 
Manure what is taken off in Hay, and the Grass 
should hold its own. 



XYI. 



THOKOrGH TILLAGE. 



Mt little, hilly, rocky farm teaches lessons of tlior- 
oughness which I would gladly impart to the boys 
of to-day who are destined to be the farmers of the 
last quarter of this century. I am sure they will find 
profit in farming better than their grandfathers did, 
and especially in putting their land into the best possi- 
ble condition for efiective tillage. There were stones 
in my fields varying in size from that of a brass kettle 
up to that of a hay-cock — some of them raising their 
heads above the surface, others burrowing just below 
it — which had been plowed around and over perhaps 
a hundred times, till I went at them with team and 
bar, or (where necessary) with drill and blast, turned 
or blew them out, and hauled them away, so that they 
will interfere with cultivation nevermore. I insist 
that this is a profitable operation — that a field which 
will not pay for such clearing should be planted with 
trees and thrown out of cultivation conclusively. 
Dodging and skulking from rock to rock is hard upon 
team, plow, and plowman ; and it can rarely pay. 
Land ribbed and spotted with fast rocks will pay if 
(96) 



TnOEOIJGH TILLAGE. 97 

judiciously planted with Timber — possibly if well set 
in Fruit — but tilling it from year to year is a thank- 
less task ; and its owner may better work by the day 
for his neighbors than try to make his bread by such 
tillage. 

So with fields soaked by springs or sodden with 
stagnant water. If you say you cannot afford to 
drain your wet land, I respond that you can still less 
afford to till it without draining. If you really can- 
not afford to fit it for cultivation, your next best 
course is to let it severely alone. 

A poor man who has a rough, rugged, sterile farm, 
which he is unable to bring to its best possible con- 
dition at once, yet which he clings to and must live 
from, should resolve that, if life and health be spared 
him, he will reclaim one field each year until all that 
is not devoted to timber shall have been brought into 
high condition. When his Summer harvest is over, 
and his Fall crops have received their last cultiva- 
tion, there will generally be from one to two Autumn 
months which he can devote mainly to this work. 
Let him take hold of it with resolute purpose to im- 
prove every available hour, not by running over the 
largest possible area, but by dealing with one field 
60 thoroughly that it will need no more during a long 
life-time. If it has stone that the plow will reach, 
dig them out; if it needs draining, drain it eo 
thoroughly that it may hereafter be plowed in 
Spring so soon as the frost leaves it ; and now let 
soil and subsoil be so loosened and pulverized that 



98 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

roots may freely penetrate them to a deptli of fifteen 
to twenty inches, finding nourishment all the way, 
with incitement to go further if ever failing mois- 
ture shall render this necessary. Drouth habitually 
shortens our Fall crops from ten to fifty per cent. ; it 
is sure to injure us more gravely as our forests are 
swept away by ax and fire ; and, while much may be 
done to mitigate its ravages by enriching the soil so 
as to give your crops an early start, and a rank, lux- 
uriant growth, the farmer's chief reliance must still 
be a depth of soil adequate to withstand weeks of 
the fiercest sunshine. 

I have considered what is urged as to the choice of 
roots to run just beneath the surface, and it does not 
signify. Roots seek at once heat and moisture ; if 
the moisture awaits them close to the surface, of 
course they mainly run there, because the heat is 
there greatest. If moisture fails there, they must 
descend to seek it, even at the cost of finding the 
heat inadequate — though heat increases and descends 
under the fervid suns which rob the surface of mois- 
ture. Make the soil rich and mellow ever so far 
down, and you need not fear that the roots will de- 
scend an inch lower than they should. They under- 
stand their business; it is your sagacity that may 
possibly prove deficient. 

I suspect that the average farmer does far too little 
plowing — by which I mean, not that he plows too 
few acres, for he often plows too many, but that he 
should plow oftener as well as deeper and more 



THOEOtIGH TILLAGE. 99 

thorouglilj. I spent three or four of mj boyish 
Summers planting and tilling Corn and Potatoes on 
fields broken up just before thej were planted, nevei 
cross-plowed, and of course tough and intractable 
throughout the season. The yield of Corn was mid- 
dling, considering the season ; that of Potatoes more 
than middling; yet, if those fields had been well 
plowed in the previous Autumn, cross-plowed early 
in the Spring, and thoroughly harrowed just before 
planting-time, I am confident that the yield would 
have been far greater, and the labor (save in har- 
vesting) rather less — the cost of the Fall plowing 
being over-balanced by the saving of half the time 
necessarily given to the planting and hoeing. 

Fall Plowing has this recommendation — it lightens 
labor at the busier season, by transfering it to one of 
comparative dullness. I may have said that I con- 
sider him a good farmer who knows how to make a 
rainy day equally effective Tvdth one that is dry and 
fair ; and, in the same spirit, I count him my master 
in this art who can make a day's work in Autumn or 
Winter save a day's work in Spring or Summer. 
Show me a farmer who has no land plowed when 
May opens, and is just waking up to a consciousness 
that his fences need mending and his trees want 
trimming, and I will guess that the sheriff will be 
after him before May comes round again. 

There is no superstition in the belief that land is 
(or may be) enriched by Pall Plowing. The Autumn 



100 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

gales are freighted with the more volatile elements 
of decaying vegetation. These, taken up wherever 
they are given off in excess, are wafted to and de- 
posited in the soils best fitted for their reception. 
Eegarded simply as a method of fertilizing, I do not 
say that Fall Plowing is the cheapest ; I do say that 
any poor field, if well plowed in the Fall, will be in 
better heart the next Spring, for w^hat wind and rain 
will meantime have deposited thereon. Frost, too, 
in any region where the ground freezes, and es- 
pecially where it freezes and thaws repeatedly, plays 
an important and beneficial part in aerating and pul- 
verizing a freshly plowed soil, especially one thrown 
up into ridges, so as to be most thoroughly exposed to 
the action of the more volatile elements. The farmer 
who has a good team may profitably keep the plow 
running in Autumn until every rood that he means 
to till next season has been thoroughly pulverized. 

In this section, our minute chequer-work of fences 
operates to obstruct and impede Plowing. Our pre- 
decessors wished to clear their fields, at least super- 
ficially, of the loose, troublesome bowlders of granite 
wherewith they were so thickly sown ; they mistak- 
enly fancied that they could lighten their own toil Wk 
by sending their cattle to graze, browse, and gnaw, 
wherever a crop was not actually on the ground ; so 
they fenced their farms into patches of two or ten 
acres, and thought they had thereby increased their 
value ! That was a sad miscalculation. Weeds, 
briars and bushes were sheltered and nourished by 



THOEOIJGH TILLAGE. 101 

tliese walls ; weasels, rats and other destructive ani- 
mals, found protection and impunity therein ; a 
wide belt on either side was made useless or worse ; 
while Plowing was rendered laborious, difficult, and 
inefficient, by the necessity of turning after every 
few hundred steps. We are growing slowly wiser, 
and burying a part of these walls, or building them 
into concrete barns or other useful structures; but 
they are still far too plentiful, and need to be dealt 
with more sternly. O squatter on a wide prairie, on 
the bleak Plains, or in a broad Pacific valley, where 
wood must be hauled for miles and loose stone are 
rarely visible, thank God for the benignant dispensa- 
tion which has precluded you from half spoiling your 
farm by a multiplicity of obstructing, deforming 
fences, and so left its soil free and open to be every- 
where pervaded, loosened, permeated, by the reno- 
vating Plow ! 



XYII. 

COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS — GTPSUM. 

Prices vary so widely in different localities that no 
fertilizer can be pronounced everywhere cheapest or 
best worth buying ; and yet I doubt that there is a 
rood of our country's surface in fit condition to be 
cultivated to which Gypsum (Plaster of Paris) might 
not be applied with profit. Where it costs $10 or 
over per tun, I would apply it sparingly — say, one 
bushel per acre — while I judge three bushels per acre 
none too much in regions where it may be bought 
much cheaper. Even the poor man who has but one 
cow, should buy a barrel of it, and dust his stable 
therewith after cleaning it each day. He who has a 
stock of cattle should never be without it, and should 
freely use it, alike in stable and yard, to keep down 
the noisome odors, and thus retain the volatile ele- 
ments of the manure. Every meadow, every pas- 
ture, should be sown with it at least triennially ; 
where it is abundant and cheap, as in Central New- 
York, I would apply it each year, unless careful ob- 
servation should satisfy me that it no longer sub- 
served a good purpose. 

As to the time of application, while I judge any 

(102) 



COJ^IMEECIAL FERTILIZEE8 GYPSUM. 103 

season will do, mj present impression is that it will 
do most good if applied when the Summer is hottest 
and the ground driest. If, for instance, you close 
your haying in mid-Summer, having been hurried by 
the rapid ripening of the grass, and find your mea- 
dows baked and cracked by the intense heat, I reckon 
that you may proceed to dust those meadows with 
Gypsum with a moral certainty that none of it will 
be wasted. So if your Corn and other Fall crops are 
suffering from and likely to be stunted by drouth, I 
advise the application of Gypsum broadcast, as evenly 
as may be and as bounteously as its price and your 
means will allow. I do not believe it so well to 
apply it specially to the growing stalks, a spoon-full 
or so per hill ; and I doubt that it is ever judicious 
to plant it in the hill with the seed. The readiest 
and quickest mode of application is also, I believe, 
the best. 

How Gypsum impels and invigorates vegetable 
growth, I do not pretend to know ; but that it does 
so was demonstrated by ^N^ature long before Man 
took the hint that she freely gave. The city of Paris 
and a considerable adjacent district rest on a bed of 
Gypsum, ranging from five to twenty feet below the 
surface, and considerably decomposed in its upper 
portion by the action of water. This region produces 
Wheat most luxuriantly, and I presume has done so 
from time immemorial. At length it crawled through 
the hair of the tillers of this soil that the substance 
which did so much good fortuitously, and (as it were) 



104 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

because it could not do otherwise, might do still more 
if applied to the soil, with deliberate intent to test 
its value as a fertilizer. The result we all under- 
stand. 

Gypsum is a chemical compound of Sulphur and 
Lime — so much is agreed ; and the theory of chemists 
has been that, as the winds pass over a surface sown 
with it, the Ammonia which has been exhaled by a 
thousand barn-yards, bogs, &c., having a stronger 
affinity for Sulphur than Lime has, dissolves the 
Gypsum, combines with the Sulphur, forming a Sal- 
phate of Ammonia, and leaves the Lime to get on as 
it may. I accept this theory, having no reason to dis- 
trust it ; and, knowing that Sulphate of Ammonia is 
a powerful stimulant of vegetable growth (as any one 
may be assured by buying a little of it from some 
druggist and making the necessary application), I can 
readily see how the desired result mAght in this way 
be produced. For our purpose, however, let it suf- 
fice that it is produced, of which almost any one may 
be convinced by sowing with Gypsum and passing by 
alternate strips or belts of the same clover-field. I 
suspect that not many fertilizers repay their cost out 
of the first crop ; but I account Gypsum one of them ; 
and I submit that no farmer can afford not to try it. 
That its good effect is diminished by many and fre- 
quent applications, is highly probable ; but there is no 
hill or slope to which Gypsum has never yet been 
applied which ought not to make its acquaintance 
this very year. I am confident that there are pastures 



co:m:mercial fertilizers — o-ypsilvi. 105 

which might be made to increase their yield of Grass 
one-third by a moderate dressing of it. 

I have heard Andrew B, Dickinson, hite of Stenbeni 
County, and one of the best unscientific, unlearned 
farmers ever produced by our State, maintain that he 
can not only enrich his own farm but impoverish hio 
neighbors' by the free use of Gypsum on his woodless 
hills. The chemist's explanation of this eifect i? 
above indicated. The plastered land attracts and 
absorbs not only its own fair proportion of the breeze- 
borne Ammonia, but much that, if the equilibrium 
had not been disturbed by such application, would 
have been deposited on the adjacent hills. As Mr. 
D. makes not the smallest pretensions to science, the 
coincidence between his dictum and the chemist's 
theory is noteworthy. 

Now that our country is completely gridironed 
with Canals and liaih'oads, brino-ins: whatever has a 
mercantile value very near every one's door, I sug- 
gest that no township should go without Gypsum. 
Five dollars will buy at least two barrels of it almost 
anywhere ; and two barrels may be sown over live or 
six acres. Let it be sown so that its eflect (or non- 
effect) may be palpable ; give it a fair, careful trial, 
and await the result. If it seem to subserve no 
good purpose, be not too swift to enter up judgment; 
but buy two barrels more, vary your time and 
method of application, and try again. If the result 
be still null, let it be given up that Gypsum is not 
the fertilizer needed just there — that some iU-under- 
5* 



106 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

stood peculiarity of soil or climate renders it there 
ineffective. Then let its use be there abandoned ; 
but it will still remain true that, in many localities 
and in countless instances, Gypsum has been fully 
proved one of the best and cheapest commercial fer- 
tihzers known to mankind. 

I never tried, but on the strength of others' testi- 
mony believe in the improvement of soils by means 
of calcined clay or earth. Mr. Andrew B. Dickin- 
son showed me where he had, during a dry Autumn 
plowed up the road-sides through his farm, started 
fires with a few roots or sticks, and then piled on 
sods of the upturned clay and grass-roots till the fire 
was nearly smothered, when each heap smoked and 
smouldered like a little coal-pit till all of it that was 
combustible was reduced to ashes, when ashes and 
burned clay were shoveled into a cart and strewn 
over his fields, to the decided improvement of their 
crops. Whoever has a clay sod to plow up, and is 
deficient in manure, may repeat this experiment with 
a moral certainty of liberal returns. 



XYIII. 

ALKALIS . . . SALT — ^ASHES — LIME. 

I DO not know a rood of our country's surface so 
ricli in all the materials wliicli enter into the produc- 
tion of the Grains, Grasses, Fruits, and Yegetables, 
which are the objects and rewards of cultivation, 
that it could not be improved by the application of 
fertilizers ; if there be such, I heartily congratulate 
the owners, and advise them not to sell. Nor do I 
believe that there are many acres so fertile that they 
would not produce more Indian Corn, more Hemp, 
more Cotton, and more of whatever may be their ap- 
propriate staple, if judiciously fertilized. If there be 
farms or fields originally so good that manure would 
not increase their yield, I am confident that the first 
half-dozen crops will have taken that conceit out of 
them. Prairies and river-bottoms may yield ever so 
bounteously ; but that very luxuriance of growth in- 
sures their gradual exhanstion of certain elements of 
crops, which must needs be replaced or their product 
will dwindle. Whoever has sold a thousand bushels 
of grain, or its equivalent in meat, from his farm, has 

thereby impoverished that farm, unless he has ap- 

(107) 



108 WHAT I KIN'OW OF FAKMTN'G. 

plied something that balances its loss. " I perceive 
that virtue has gone out of me," observed the Saviour, 
because the hem of his garment had been touched ; 
and every field that had been cropped might make a 
similar report whenever its annual loss by abstrac- 
tion has not been balanced by some kind of fertilizer. 
The farmer who grows the largest crops is the most 
merciless exhauster of the soil, unless he balances his 
annual drafts (as good farmers rarely fail to do) by at 
least equal reenforcements of the productive capacity 
of his fields. 

The good farmer begins by inquiring, " Wherein 
was my soil originally deficient ? and of what has it 
been exhausted by subsequent crops ?" I judge that 
my gravelly hill-sides would reward the application 
of two hundred loads (or tuns) of pure clay per acre, 
as I think the clay flats which border Lake Cham- 
plain would pay for a like application of sand or fine 
gravel where that material is found in convenient 
proximity ; and yet I know very well that, on at 
least three-fourths of our country's area, such appli- 
cation would cost far more than it would be worth. 
Every farmer must act on his knowledge of his soil 
and its pecuhar needs, and not blindly follow tlie dic- 
tum of another. Yet I know few farms which, were 
they mine, I would not consider enhanced in value 
by a vigorous application of some alkaline substance 
- — Lime, Salt, Ashes, or some of the cheaper Nitrates. 
I should be very glad to apply one thousand bushels 
of good house-made, hard-wood Ashes to my twenty 



ALKALIS . . . SALT ASHES LIME. 109 

acres of arable upland, if I could buj them, delivered, 
at twenty- five cents per bushel ; but thej are not to 
be had. I doubt that there are a hundred acres of 
warm, dry, gravelly or sandy soil east of the Alle- 
ghanies that would not amply reward a similar ap- 
plication. But Ashes in quantity are unattainable, 
since no good farmer sells them, and Coal is the chief 
fuel of cities and villages. The Marls of New-Jersey 
I judge fully equal in average value to Ashes which 
have been nearly deprived of their potash by leach- 
ing, but not quite half equal, bushel for bushel, to 
-w^leached Ashes. I judge that average Marl is 
worth 10 cents per bushel where Ashes may be had 
for 25. But Marl is found only in a few localities, 
and a material worth but 10 cents per bushel will 
not bear transportation beyond 40 miles by wagon or 
200 by water. Salt is only found or made at a few 
points, ar.d is too dear for general use as a fertilizer. 
Where the refuse product of Salt- Works can be 
cheaply bought, good farmers will eagerly compete 
for it, if their lands at all resemble mine. I judge 
the tun of Potash I ordered fifteen years ago 
from Syracuse, paying $50 and transportation, was 
the cheapest fertilizer I ever bought. It was so im- 
pregnated with Salt (from the boiling over of the 
salt-kettles into the ashes) as to be worthless for other 
than agricultural purposes ; but I mixed it ^'ith a 
large pile of Muck that I had recently dug, and, six 
or eight months thereafter, applied the product to a 
very poorj gravelly hill-side w^hich I had just broken 



110 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

up ; and the immediate result was a noble crop of 
Corn. That hill-side has not yet forgotten the appli- 
cation. 

— If I should try to explain just how and why Lime 
IS a fertilizer, I should probably fail ; and I am well 
assured that liming has in some cases been overdone ; 
yet I think most observers will concur in my state- 
ment that cmy region which has 'been limed year after 
year produces crops of noticeable excellence. I cite as 
examples Chester and Lancaster Counties, Pennsyl- 
vania, with Stark and adjacent counties of Ohio. 
Possibly, results equally gratifying might be secured 
by applying some other substance ; I only hnow that 
frequently limed lands are generally good lands, as 
their crops do testify. I heartily wish that the flat 
clay intervales of Western Vermont could have a 
fair trial of the virtues of liming. I should expect 
to see them thereby rendered friable and arable ; no 
longer changing speedily from the semblance of tar 
to that of brick, but readily plowed and tilled, and 
yielding liberally of Grain as well as Grass. I am 
confident that most farms in our country will pay 
for liming to the extent of fifty bushels per acre 
where the cost of quick -lime does not exceed ten 
cents per bushel ; and most farmers, by taking, hot 
from the kiln, the refuse lime that is deemed unfit 
for building purposes, can obtain it cheaper than that. 

I wish some farmer who gives constant personjsl 
attention to his work — as I cannot — would make 
some careful tests of the practical value of alkalis. 



ALKALIS . . . SALT ASHES LIME. Ill 

For instance: the abundance and tenacity of our 
common sorrel is supposed to indicate an acid condi- 
tion of the soil ; and all who have tried it know that 
sorrel is hard to kill by cultivation. I suggest that 
whoever is troubled with it should cover two square 
rods with one bushel of quick-hme just after plow- 
ing and harrowing this Spring ; then apply another 
bushel io four square rods adjacent ; then make simi- 
lar applications of ashes to two and four square rods 
respectively, taking careful note of the boundaries of 
each patch, and leaving the rest of the field destitute 
of either apphcation. I will not anticipate the re- 
sult : more than one year may be required to evolve 
it ; but I am confident that a few such experiments 
would supply data whereof I am in need ; and there 
are doubtless otiiers whose ignorance is nearly equal 
to mine. 

Many have apphed Lime to their fields without 
realizing any advantage therefrom. In some cases, 
there was already a sufficiency of this ingredient in 
the soil, and the application of more was one of those 
many wasteful blunders induced by our ignorance of 
Chemistry. But much Lime is naturally adultera- 
ted with other minerals, especially with Manganese, 
so that its application to most if not to all soils sub- 
serves no good end. In the absence of exact, scien- 
tific knowledge, I would buy fifty bushels of quick- 
hme, apply them to one acre running through a field, 
and watch the efiect. If it does n't pay, you have 
a bad article, or your soil is not deficient in Lime. 



XIX. 



SOILS AlfD FEETILIZEES. 



A FARMER is a manufacturer of articles wlierefrora 
mankind are fed and clad ; his raw materials are the 
soil and the various substances he mingles therewith] 
or adds thereto in order to increase its productive' 
capacity. His art consists in transforming by cul- 
tivation crude, comparatively wortliless, and even 
noxious, offensive materials into substances grateful 
to the senses, nourishing to the body, and sometimes | 
invigorating, even strengthening, to the mind. 

I have heard of lands that were naturally rich] 
enough ; I never was so lucky or perchance so dis- 
cerniug as to find them. Yet I have seen Illinois 
bottoms whereof I was assured that the soil was fully 
sixteen feet deep, and a rich, black alluvium from top 
'to bottom ; and I do not question the statements 
made to me from personal observation that portions 
of the strongly alkaline plain or swale on which Salt 
Lake City is built, being for the first time plowed, 
irrigated, and sown to Wheat, yielded ninety bushels 
of good grain per acre. I never saw, yet on evidence 

(I I a) 



SOILS AJH) FERTILIZEES. 113 

believe, that pioneer settlers of the Miami Yalley, 
wishing, some years after settling there, to sell their 
farms, advertised them as peculiarly desirable in 
that the barns stood over a creek or " branch," 
■which swept away the manure each Winter or Spring 
without trouble to the owner ; and I have myself 
grown both Wheat and Oats that were very rank and 
heavy in straw, yet which fell so flat and lay so dead 
that the heads scarcely bore a kernel. Had I been a 
wiser, better farmer, I should have known how to 
stiifen the straw and make it do its office, in spite of 
wind and storm. 

[And let me here say, lest I forget it in its appro- 
priate place, that I am confi.dent that most farmei's 
sow grain too thickly for any but very poor land. If 
one thinks it necessary to scatter three bushels of 
Oats per acre, I tell him that he should apply more 
manure and less seed — that land which requires three . 
bushels of seed is not rich enouo;h to bear Oats. He 
might better concentrate his manure on half so much 
land, and save two-thirds of his seed.] 

I do not hold that the remarkably rich soils I have 
instanced needed fertilizing when first plowed ; I 
will presume that they did not. Yet, having never 
yet succeeded in manuring a corn-field so high that 
a few loads more would not (I judge) have increased 
the crop, I doubt whether even the richest Illinois 
bottoms would not yield more Corn, year by year, if 
reenforced with the contents of a good barn-yard. 
And, when the first heavy crop of Corn has been 



114 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

taken from a field, that field — ^no matter how deep and 
fertile its soil — is less rich in corn-forming elements 
than it was before. Just so sure as that there is no 
depletion or shrinkage when nothing is taken from 
nothing, so sure is it that something cannot be taken 
from something without diminishing its capacity to 
yield something at the next call. Rotation of crops 
is an excellent plan ; for one may flourish on that 
which another has rejected ; but this does not over- 
bear E"ature's inflexible exaction of so much for so 
much. Hence, if there ever was a fleld so rich that 
nothing could be added that would increase its pro- 
ductive capacity, the first ex^-cting crop thereafter 
taken from it diminished that capacity, and rendered 
a fresh application of some fertilizer desirable. 

Years ago, a Western man exhibited at our Farm- 
ers' Club a specimen of the soil of his region which 
was justly deemed very rich, taken from a field 
whereon Corn had been repeatedly grown without 
apparent exhaustion. A chemical analysis had been 
made of it, which was submitted with the soil. It 
was claimed that nothing could improve its capacity 
for producing the great Illinois staple. Prof. Mapes 
dissented from this conclusion. "This soil," said he, 
"while very rich in nearly every element which 
enters into the composition of Corn, gives barely a 
trace of Chlorine, the base of Salt. Hence, if five 
bushels per acre of Salt be applied to that field, and 
it does not thereupon yield ^ve bushels more per 
annum of Corn, I will agree to eat the field." 



SOILS AND FERTILIZEES. 115 

Many men fertilize their poor lands only, supposing 
that the better can do without. I judge that to be a 
mistake. My rule would be to plant the poorest with 
such choice trees as thrive without manure, and pile 
the fertilizers upon the better. It seems to me 
plain that of two fields, one of which has a soil con- 
taining nine-tenths of the elements of the desired 
crop, while the other shows but one to three-tenths, 
it is a more hopeful and less thankless task to enrich 
the former than the latter. If you are required to 
supply to a field nearly everything that your pro- 
posed crop will withdraw from it, I do not see where 
the profit comes in ; but if you are required to supply 
but a tenth, because the soil as you found it stood 
ready to contribute the remaining nine-tenths, it 
seems to me that the margin for profit is here de- 
cidedly the greater. 

How many tuns of earth ought a farmer to be 
obliged to turn over and over in ordfer to obtain 
therefrom a hundred bushels of Corn? Two hun- 
dred ? Five hundred ? A thousand ? Fiwe thousand ? 
Other things being equal, no one will doubt that, if 
he can make the Corn from one hundred tuns of soil, 
it were better to do so than to employ five hundred 
or five thousand. It seems clear to my mind that, 
though other conditions be -w^equal, it is generally 
weU to endeavor to produce the required quantity 
from the smaller rather than the larger area. 

I fully share the average farmer's partiality for 
barn-yard manure in preference to most, if not all, 



116 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMEsG. 

commercial fertilizers. In my judgment, almost any 
farmer who has cattle, with fit shelter and Winter 
fodder, can make fertilizers far cheaper than he can 
buy them. I judge that almost every farmer who has 
paid $100 or over for Guano (for instance), might 
have more considerably enriched his farm by draw- 
ing muck from some convenient bog or pond into his 
barn-yard in August or September and carting it 
thence to his fields the next Fall. If he can get no 
muck within a mile, let him cut, when they are 
in blossom, all the weeds that grow near him, es- 
pecially by the road-side, cart them at once into his 
barn-yard, and there convert them into fertilizers. 
In Autumn, replace the hay-rack on the wagon or 
cart, and pile load after load of freshly-fallen leaves 
into your yard ; taking them, if you may, from the 
sides of roads and fences, and from any place where 
they may have been lodged or heaped by the winds, 
your own wood-lot excepted. Plow the turf ofi* of 
auy scurvy lot or road-side, and pile it into the barn- 
yard ; nay, dig a hundred loads of pure clay, and 
place it there, if you can get it at a small expense, and 
your average soil is gravelly or sandy. The farmer 
who is unable or reluctant to buy commercial fertil- 
izers should apply his whole force every Autumn to 
replenishing his barn-yard with that material which 
he can obtain most easily which the trampling of his 
cattle may readily convert into manure. A month is 
too little, two months would not be too much, to de- 
vote to this good work. Some may seem obliged to 



BOILS AND FERTILIZEKS. 117 

postpone it to Winter ; but that is to run the risk of 
embarrassment by frost or snow, and •encounter the 
certainty that your material will be inferior in 
quality, or not so well fitted to apply to grain-crops 
the ensuing Fall. 

— All this, you may say, is not instruction. We 
ought to know exactly what lands are enriched by 
Gypsum, and what, if any, are not ; why these are 
fertilized, why those are not, by a common appli- 
cation ; how great is the profit of such application in 
any case ; and what substitute can most nearly sub- 
serve the same ends where Gypsum is not to be 
had. I admit all you claim, and do not doubt that 
there shall yet be a Scientific Agriculture that will 
fully answer your requirements. As yet, however, 
it exists but in suggestions and fragments ; and 
attempts to complete it by naked assertions and 
sweeping generalizations tend rather to mislead and 
disgust the young farmer than really to enlighten and 
guide him. At all events, I shall aim to set forth 
as true no more than I know, or with good reason 
confidently believe. 

I close by reiterating my belief that no farmer ever 
yet impoverished himself by making too much ma- 
nure or by applying too much of his own manufac- 
ture. I cannot speak so confidently of huyi/ag com- 
mercial fertilizers; but tliese I will discuss in my 
next chapter. 



XX. 

BONES — ^PHOSPHATES — GTJANO. 

1 HATE to check improvement or chill the glow of 
Faith ; yet I do so keenly apprehend that many of 
our people, espe»cially among the Southern cotton- 
growers, are squandering money on Commercial Fer- 
tilizers, that I am bound to ntter my note of warning, 
even though it should pass wholly unheeded. Let me 
make my position as clear as I can. 

I live in a section which has been cultivated for 
more than two centuries, while its proximity to a 
great city has tempted to crop it incessantly, ex- 
haustively. Wheat while its original surface soil of 
six to twelve inches of vegetable mold (mainly com- 
posed of decayed forest-leaves) remained ; then Corn 
and Oats ; at length, Milk, Beef, and Apples — have 
exhausted the hill-sides and gentler slopes of "West- 
chester County, except where they have been kept in 
heart by judicious culture and liberal fertilizing ; 
and, even here, that subtle element. Phosphorus, 
which enters minutely but necessarily into the com- 
position of every animal and nearly every vegetable 
structure, has been gradually drawn away in Grain, 

("8) 



BONES PHOSPHATES GUANO. 119 

in Milk, in Bones, and not restored to the soil by the 
application of ordinary manures. I am convinced 
that a field may be so manured as to give three tuns 
of Hay per acre, yet so destitute of Phosphorus that 
a sound, healthy animal cannot be grown therefrom. 
For two centuries, the tillers of Westchester County 
knew nothing of Chemistry or Phosphorus, and al- 
lowed the unvalued bones of their animals to be ex- 
ported to fatten British meadows, without an effort to 
retain them. Hence, it has become absolutely essen- 
tial that we buy and apply Phosphates, even though 
the prioe be high ; for our land can no longer do 
without them. Wherever a steer or heifer can oc- 
casionally be caught gnawing or mumbling over an 
old bone, there Phosphates are indispensable, no 
matter at what cost. Better pay $100 per tun for a 
dressing of one hundred pounds of Bone per acre 
than try to do without. 

But no lands recently brought into cultivation — ^no 
lands where the bones of the animals fed thereon 
have been allowed, for unnumbered years past, to 
mingle with the soil — can be equally hungry for 
Phosphates ; and I doubt that any cotton-field in the 
South will ever return an outlay of even $50 per tun 
for any Phosphatic fertilizer whatever. That any 
preparation of Bone, or whereof Bone is a principal 
element, will increase the succeeding crops, is un- 
doubted ; but that it will ever return its cost and a 
decent margin of profit, is yet to be demonstrated to 
my satisfaction. 



120 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

Ko doubt, there are special cases in whicli tlie ap- 
plication even of Peruvian Guano at $90 per tun is 
advisable. A compost of Muck, Lime, &c., equally 
efficient, might be far cheaper ; but months would be 
required to prepare and perfect it, and meantime the 
farmer would lose his crop, or fail to make one. If 
a tun of Guano, or of some expensive Phosphate, 
will give him six or eight acres of Clover where ho 
would otherwise have little or none, and he needs 
that Clover to feed the team w^herewith he is break- 
ing up and fitting his farm to grow a good crop next 
year, he may wisely make the purchase and applica- 
tion, even though he may be able to compost for] 
next year's use twice the value of fertilizers for the* 
precise cost of this. But I am so thorough in my 
devotion to " home industry," that I hold him an un- 
skillful farmer who cannot, nine times in ten, make, 
mainly from materials to be found on or near his 
farm, a pile of compost for $100 that w^ill add more 
to the enduring fertility of his farm than anything 
he can bring from a distance at a cost of $150. 

Understand that this is a general rule, and subject, 
like all general rules, to exceptions. Gypsum, I 
think every farmer should buy ; Lime also, if his soil 
needs it ; Phosphates in some shape, if past ignor- 
ance or folly has allowed that soil to be despoiled of 
them ; "Wood Ashes, if any one can be found so 
brainless as to sell them ; Marl, of course, where it is 
found within ten miles ; Guano very rarely, and 
mainly when something is needed to make a crop be- 



BONES — PHOSPHATES GUANO. 121 

fore coarser and colder fertilizers can be brought into 
a condition of fitness for use ; but the general rule I 
insist on is this : A good farmer will, in the course of 
twenty or thirty years, make at least $10 worth of 
fertilizers for every dollar's worth he buys from any 
dealer, unless it be the sweepings or other excretions 
of some not distant city. 

I have used Guano frequently, and, though it has 
generally made its mark, I never yet felt sure that it 
returned me a profit over its cost. Phosphates have 
done better, especially where applied to Corn in the 
hill, either at the time of planting or later ; yet my 
strong impression is that Flour of Bone, applied 
broadcast and freely, especially when "Wheat or Oats 
are sown on a field that is to be laid down to Grass, 
pays better and more surely than anything else I 
order from the City, Gypsum, and possibly Oyster- 
Shell Lime, excepted. 

My experience can be no safe guide for others, 
since it is not proved that the anterior condition and 
needs of their soils are precisely like those of mine. 
I apprehend that Guano has not had a fair trial on 
my place — that carelessness in pulverizing or in ap- 
plication has caused it to '^ waste its sweetness on the 
desert air,'' or that a drouth following its application 
has prevented the due development of its virtues. 
And still my impression that Guano is the brandy of 
vegetation, supplying to plants stimulus rather than 
nutrition, is so clear and strong that it may not easily 
be effaced. It seems to me plainly absurd to send 
6 



122 WHAT I KPTOW OF FARMING. 

ten thousand miles for this stimulant, when this or 
any other great city annually poisons its own atmos- 
phere and the adjacent waters with excretions which 
are of very similar character and value, and which 
Science and Capital might combine to utilize at less 
than half the cost of like elements in the form of 
Guano. 

My object in this paper is to incite experiment and 
careful observation. JSTo farmer should absolutely 
trust aught but his own senses. A Khode Islander 
once assured me that he applied to four acres of thin, 
slaty gravel one hundred pounds per acre of N^itrate 
of Soda which cost him $4 per hundred, and obtain- 
ed therefrom four additional tuns of good Hay, 
worth $15 per tun : Net profit (after allowing for the 
cost of making the Hay), say $30. He might not be 
so fortunate on a second trial, and there may not be 
another four acres of the earth's surface where 
Nitrate of Soda would do so well ; but, should I ever 
have a fair opportunity, I mean to see what a little 
of that Nitrate will do for me. And I hope farmers 
may more and more be induced to conform in prac- 
tice to the Apostolic precept, " Prove all things : 
Hold fast that which is good." No one's success or 
failure in a particular instance should be conclusive 
with others, because of the infinite diversity of ante- 
cedent and attendant circumstances ; but if every 
thrifty farmer would give to each of the commercial 
fertilizers — Lime, Gypsum, Guano, Raw Bone, Phos- 
phates, Ashes, Salt, Marl, etc. — such a careful trial 



BONES — PHOSPHATES — GUANO. 123 

as he miglit, observing closely and recording carefully 
the results, we should soon have a mass of facts and 
results, wherefrom deductions might be drawn of 
signal practical value to the present and to future 
generations. 

I firmly believe that great results of signal benefi- 
cence are to be slowly but surely achieved by means 
of the household convenience known as the Earth- 
Closet, and by kindred devices for rendering inofien- 
sive and utilizing the most powerful fertilizer pro- 
duced on every farm and in every household. That 
is a vulgar squeamishness which leaves it to poison 
the atmosphere and oflend the senses on the 
assumption that it is too noisome to be dealt with or 
utilized. A true refinement counsels that it be daily 
covered, and its odor absorbed or suppressed by earth, 
or muck, or ashes, and thus prepared for removal to 
and incorporation with the soil. It is far within the 
truth to estimate our J^ational loss by the waste of 
this material at $1 per head, or $40,000,000 in all 
per annum : a waste which is steadily diminishing 
the productive capacity of our soil. This cannot, 
must not, be allowed to continue. We must devise 
or adopt some mode of securing and applying this 
powerful fertilizer ; and I defer to that which is al- 
ready in extensive and daily expanding use. Let 
whoever can do better ; but meantime let us welcome 
and difi'use the Earth Closet. 



XXI. 

muck: HOW TO UTILIZE IT. 

The time will be, I cannot doubt, when cbemists 
can tell us the exact positive or relative value of a 
cord of Muck — how this swamp or that pond affords 
a choice article, while the product of another will 
hardly pay for digging. There may be chemists 
whose judgment on these points is now worth far 
more than mine, since mine is worth exactly nothing. 
I do know, however, that Muck is a valuable fer- 
tilizer, and that digging and composting it does 'pay. 
I judge that I have transferred at least three thou- 
sand loads of it from my swamp to my upland ; and 
the effect has been all that I expected. Let me 
speak of Muck generally, in the light of my own ex- 
perience. 

Wherever rocks in ridges come to the surface of a 
valley, plain, or gentle slope, water is apt to be col- 
lected or retained by them, forming ponds or shal- 
lower pools, which may or may not dry up in Sum- 
mer, but which are seldom dry late in Autumn, when 
plants are dying and leaves are falling. The latter, 
caught in their descent by the harsh winds of the 
(124) 



MUCK HOW TO UTILIZE IT. 125 

season, are swept along the bare, dry ground, till 
they strike the water, which arrests tlieir progress 
and soon engulfs them. Thus an acre of watery sur- 
face will often collect and retain the dead foliage of 
five to ten acres of forest ; and next Fall will render 
its kindred tribute, and the next, and the next, for 
ever. There cannot be less than fifty millions of 
acres of Swamps in our old States (including Maine) ; 
whereof T presume the larger area was covered with 
water until the slow contributions of leaves and 
weeds filled them above the level at which water is 
no longer retained on the surface. And still, they 
are so moist and boggy, and their rank vegetation is 
so retentive, that the leaves swept in from the adja- 
cent hills and glades are firmly retained and aid to 
increase the depth of their vegetable mold, which 
varies from a few inches to twenty and even thirty 
feet. In my old County of Westchester, I roughly 
estimate that there are at least five thousand acres of 
bog, whereof but a very few hundreds have yet been 
subdued to the uses of cultivation. 

Whoever digs a quantity of Swamp Muck and ap- 
plies it directly to his fields or garden, will derive 
little or no immediate benefit therefrom. It is green, 
sour, cold, and more likely to cover his farm thickly 
and persistently with Sorrel, Eye-smart, Rag-weed, 
Pursley, and other infestations, than to add a bushel 
per acre to his crop of Grain or Roots. And thus 
many have tried Muck, and, on trial, pronounced it 
a pestilent humbug. 



126 WHAT I e:n"OW of farming. 

But let any farmer turn his whole force into a bog 
or marsh directly after finishing his Summer harvest 
(when it is apt to be driest and warmest), and, hav- 
ing freed it of water to the best of his abihty, dig and 
draw out one hundred cords of its black, oozy sub- 
stance, and he will know better than to unite in that 
hasty judgment. If the bog be near his farm-yard, 
let the Muck be shoveled at once into a cart and 
drawn thither ; but, if not, let it be simply brought 
out in wheel-barrows and deposited, not more than 
two feet deep, on the most convenient bank that is 
well drained and perfectly dry. Here let it dry and 
drain till after Fall harvest, and then begin to draw 
it gradually into the yards, and especially where it 
may be worked over by swine and scratched over for 
seeds and insects by fowls. Assuming that the farm- 
yard is lowest in the centre and allows no liquid to 
escape save by evaporation, the Muck may well be 
dumped on the drier sides ; thence, after being 
worked over and trampled through and through, to 
be shoveled into the centre and replaced by fresh 
arrivals. A hundred cords may thus be so mixed and 
ripened as to be fit to draw out next May and used 
as a fertilizer for Grain or Roots, though, if not so 
treated, it should he exposed to sun and wind a full 
year ; being applied in the Fall to crops of Winter 
grain or spread upon the fields to be planted or sow- 
ed next Spring. All the manure made during the 
Winter should be spread over that which lies in the 
yard at least monthly ; and then new Muck drawn in, 



MUCK HOW TO UTILIZE IT. . 127 

to be rooted or scratched over, trampled into the un- 
derlying strata, and overspread in its turn. Thus 
treated, I am. confident that each hundred cords of 
Muck will be equal in value to an equal quantity of 
manure, though it may not give up its fertilizing 
properties so freel}^ to the first crop that follows its 
application. I have land that did not yield (in pas- 
ture) the equivalent of half a tun of hay per annum 
when I bought it, that now yields at least three tuns 
of good hay per annum ; and its renovation is mainly 
due to a free application of Swamp Muck. 

To those who have a good stock of animals, with 
Muck convenient to their yards, I would not recom- 
mend any other treatment than the foregoing ; but 
there are many who keep few animals, or whose 
muck-beds lie at the back of their farms, two or three 
hundred rods from their barns ; while they wish to 
fertilize the fields in this quarter, which have been 
slighted in former applications, because of the dis- 
tance over which manure had to be hauled. If these 
possess or can buy good hard-wood, house-made Ashes 
at twenty-five cents or less per bushel, I would say. 
Mix these well, at the rate of two or three bushels to 
the cord, with your Muck as you dig it ; work it over 
the next Spring, and apply it the ensuing Fall, so as 
to give it a full year to ripen and sweeten, and it will 
be all right. Eut, if you have not and cannot get 
the Ashes, and ca/n procure dirty, refuse Salt from 
some meat-packer or wholesale grocer, apply this as 
you would have applied the Ashes, but in rather 



128 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

larger quantity ; and, if jou can get neither Ashes 
nor Salt, use quick Lime, as fresh and hot from the 
kihi as you can apply it. The best Lime is that from 
burned Oyster-Shells ; I consider this, if nowise slaked, 
nearly equal to refuse Salt ; but Oyster-Shell Lime is 
too dear at most inland points ; and here the refuse 
of the kilns — that which is not good enough for 
mason-work — must be used. Usually, the lime- 
burner has a load or more of this at the clearing 
out of every kiln, which he will sell quite cheap if it 
be taken out of his way at once ; and this should be 
looked for and secured. Being inferior in quality 
(often because imperfectly burned), it should be ap- 
plied in larger quantity — not less than four bushels 
to each cord of Muck. 

I will not here describe the process of mixing Salt 
with Lime commended by Prof. Mapes, because it is 
not easy to bring these two ingredients together so 
as to mix them with the Muck as it is dug : and, 
though I have used them after Prof. Mapes's recipe, 
and purpose to do so hereafter, I do not feel certain 
that any positive advantage results from their blended 
application as a Chloride of Lime. If I should gain 
further light on this point before completing this 
series, I shall not fail to impart it. 



XXII. 

INSECTS BIRDS. 

If 1 were to estimate the average absolute loss 
of the farmers of this country from Insects at 
$100,000,000 per annum, I should doubtless be far 
below the mark. The loss of fruit alone by the de- 
vastations of insects, within a radius of fifty miles 
from this City, must amount in value to Millions. In 
my neighborhood, the Peach once flourished, but 
flourishes no more, and Cherries have been all but 
annihilated. ApjDles were till lately our most proflt- 
able and perhaps our most important product ; but 
the worms take half our average crop and sadly 
damage what they do not utterly destroy. Plums 
we have ceased to grow or expect ; our Pears are 
generally stung and often blighted ; even the Currant 
has at last its fruit-destroying worm. We must fight 
our paltry adversaries more eflficiently, or allow them 
to drive us whoUy from the field. 

Now, I have no doubt that our best alhes in this 

inglorious warfare are the Birds. They would save 

us, if we did not destroy them. The British plowman, 

tm'ning his sod with a myriad of crows, blackbirds, 

(129) 



130 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

etc., chasing his steps and all but getting under his 
feet in their eager quest of grubs, bugs, etc., is a 
spectacle to be devoutly thankful for. Whenever 
clouds of birds shall habitually darken our fields in 
May and (less notably) throughout the Summer 
months, we may reasonably hope to grow fair crops 
of our favorite Fruits from year to year, and realize 
that we owe them to the constant, and zealous, 
though not quite disinterested, efforts of our friends, 
the Birds. 

But I do not regard the ravages of Insects as en- 
tirely due to the reckless destruction and consequent 
scarcity of om* Birds. I hold that their multiplica- 
tion and their devastations are largely incited by the 
degeneracy of our plants caused by the badness of our 
culture. On this point, consider a statement made 
to me, some fifteen or twenty years ago, by the late 
Gov. William F. Packer, of Pennsylvania : 

"I know (said Gov. P.) the narrow valley of a 
stream that runs into the west branch of the Susque- 
hanna, which was cleared of the primitive forest 
some forty or fifty years since, and has ever since 
been alternately in tillage and grass. A road ran 
through the middle of it, dividing it into two narrow 
fields. A few years ago, this road was abandoned, 
and the whole of this little valley, including the 
road-way, thrown into a single field, which was 
thereupon sown to Wheat. At harvest- time, this re- 
markable phenomenon was presented : A good crop 
of sound grain on the strip four or five rods wide 



INSECTS — BIHDS. 131 

tbrmerlj covered by the road; while nearly every 
berry on either side of it was destroyed by the weevil 
or midge." 

]N^ow I do not infer from this fact that insect 
ravages are wholly due to our abuse and exhaustion of 
the soil. I presume that Wheat and other crops 
would be devastated by insects if there were no 
slovenly, niggard, exhausting tillage. But I do 
firmly hold that at least half our losses by insects 
would be precluded if our fields were habitually 
kept in better heart by deep culture, liberal fertili- 
zing, and a judicious rotation of crops. I heard little 
of insect ravages in the wheat-fields of Western 
!brew-York thi'oughout the first thirty years of this 
century ; but, when crop after crop of Wheat had 
been taken from the same fields until they had been 
well nigh exhausted of their Wheat-forming ele- 
ments, we began to hear of the desolation wrought 
by insects ; and those ravages increased in magni- 
tude until Wheat-cultui'e had to be abandoned for 
years. I believe that we should have heard little of 
insects had Wheat been grown on those fields but 
one year in three since their redemption from the 
primal forest. 

But, whatever might once have been, the Philis- 
tines are upon us. We are doomed, for at least a 
generation, to wage a relentless war against insects 
multiplied beyond reason by the neglect and short- 
comings of our predecessors. We are in like con- 
dition with the inhabitants of the British isles a 



132 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

thousand years ago, whose forefathers had so long 
endured and so unskillfully resisted invasion and 
spoliation by the N'orthmen that they had come to 
be regarded as the sea-kings' natural prey. For 
generations, it has been customary hereabout to 
slaughter without remorse the birds, and let cater- 
pillars, worms, grasshoppers, etc., multiply and ravage 
unresisted. We must pay for past errors by present 
loss and years of extra effort. And, precisely because 
the task is so arduous, we ought to lose no time in ad- 
dressing ourselves to its execution. 

The first step to be taken is very simple. Let every 
farmer who realizes the importance and beneficence 
of Birds teach his own children and hirelings that, 
except the Hawk, they are to be spared, protected, 
kindly treated, and (when necessary) fed. They are 
to be valued and cherished as the voluntary police of 
our fields and gardens, constantly employed in fight- 
ing our battles against our ruthless foes. The boy 
who robs a bird's nest is robbing the farmer of a 
part of his crops. He who traverses a farm shooting 
and mangling its feathered sentinels diminishes its 
future product of Grain and nearly destroys that of 
Fruit. The farmer might as well consent that any 
strolling ruffian should shoot his Horses or Cattle as 
his Birds. Begin at home to make this truth felt 
and respected, and it will be the easier to impress it 
also on your neighbors. 

Next, there should be neighborhood or township 
associations for the protection of insect-eating birds. 



INSECTS ^BIRDS. 133 

We must not merely agree to let them live — we must 
cherish and protect them. I believe that very sim- 
ple cups or bowls of cast-iron, having each a hole in 
its centre of suitable size, that need not cost six- 
pence each, and could be fastened to the side of a 
tree with one nail lightly driven, would in time be 
adopted by many birds as nesting strongholds, whence 
they might laugh to scorn their predacious enemies. 
If every harmless bird could build its nest among us 
in a place where its eggs would be safe from hawks, 
crows, cats, boys, and other robbers, the number of 
such birds would quickly be doubled and quadrupled. 
And we must summon the law to our aid. Though 
law can do little or nothing against stealthy, skulk- 
ing nest-plunderers, it can help us materially in our 
warfare with the cowardly vagabonds who traverse 
our fields with musket or rifle, blazing away at every 
unsuspecting robin or thrush that they can discover. 
Make it trespass, punishable with fine and imprison- 
ment, to shoot on another's land without his express 
permission, and the cowardly massacre of the farmers' 
humble allies would be checked at once, and, when 
public sentiment had been properly enlightened, 
might, in civilized regions, be arrested altogether. 



XXIII. 

AEOUT TKEE-PLAI^TING. f| 

A 

I HAVE liad so little experience in Tree-Planting 
that I should have preferred to say no more about it ; 
but letters that have reached me imply that the 
ignorance of others is even depser than mine. For 
the sake of those only who are conscious that they 
know nothing, yet are not unwilHng to learn, I ven- 
ture a few timid suggestions with regard to Tree- 
Planting. 

I. Ten or twelve years ago, I bought a pound or 
more of Locust seed rather late in the Spring, scalded 
it by plunging for a moment the little cotton bag which 
held it into a pot of boiling water, and letting the 
seed steep and steam in the bag till next morning, 
when the seed was planted in rows in a newly broken 
bit of poor old pasture-land. This was a mistake ; I 
should have given that seed the richest available spot 
in my garden, to say nothing of planting it as early as 
April 20th. My locusts came up slowly and grew 
feebly that year, not to speak of the many seeds that 
did not sprout at all. Still many came up and sur- 
vived, and my place is this day the richer for them. 
(134) 



ABOUT TREE-PLANTING. 135 

It miglit have been still richer had I seasonably 
known more. 

II. What I would now advise as to Locust and 
most otlier trees is that the best seed be procured in 
the Fall, or so soon as it drops from the trees ; that 
part of it be sown in drills, two feet apart, with two 
inches between seeds in the drills, and that the richest 
of dry, warm garden-soil be devoted to this purpose. 
Fill a large box with rich loam, stir four ounces of 
seed into this, and set the box in a cool cellar where 
frost does not enter, and here let it remain till April ; 
then take out the seed and earth together, and sow in 
drills as above. If some one who cuts Locust during 
the Winter or Spring will allow you to trace the 
smaller surface-roots from the new-made stumps and 
cut or dig them up, cut fifty or a hundred pieces of 
root the size of your finger each two feet long, and 
plaTit these, about May 1, in the places where you 
want Locusts to come forward most rapidly. Some 
of them may not grow, but I think many will ; andj 
from all these sources, I judge that you will obtain a 
good supply of young trees. Let those you start from 
the seed get two years' growth before you take them 
up and set them where you want trees, whether in 
your present woods, in rugged, rocky pastures, on the 
sides of steep ravines, or around yonr buildings. You 
cannot fail to obtain some trees if you follow these 
directions. 

III. Begin early this Fall to gather Chestnuts, '^ 
Hickory JSTuts, Walnuts, White Oak Acorns, etc., to 



136 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

plant. Select the largest and finest nuts, giving tLe 
preference to those which i*ipen and fall earliest. 
Keep them in cool, damp earth in some barn or cellar 
where rats and mice cannot reach them, and persist 
in collecting till December. Then plant a part in 
your garden or in any rich ground where they are not 
likely to be disturbed ; letting the residue remain in 
the boxes of moist earth where you first placed them 
till early Spring; then plant these, like the former, in 
rows two feet apart, with six inches between seed 
and seed in each row, and give the rows careful cul- 
ture for two years ; after which, set them where you 
wish them to grow. 

I venture to suggest that he who has a rugged, 
stony hill or other lot which he wishes to surrender 
to forest should plow it, if it can be plowed, next 
September or October ; if too rocky to be even im- 
perfectly plowed, dig up the earth with pick and 
spade, and sow it thickly with hickory nuts, walnuts, 
chestnuts, locust and other tree-seeds, expecting that 
some will be dug up and carried off by squirrels, etc., 
and that others will fail to germinate. Go over it 
with hoes the ensuing June or July, killing all weeds 
and other infestations ; and, nearly a 3^ear later, repeat 
the operation, taking up young trees from your gar- 
den or nursery, and filling them in wherever there is 
room. Plant thickly in order to force an upward 
rather than a scraggy growth ; and so that you may 
begin to cut out the superfluous saplings for bean- 
poles, hoop-poles, etc., three or four years thereafter. 



ABOUT TEEE-PLANTING. 137 

Cut late in Winter or early in Spring, so that the 
stumps will earih throw np two or more shoots or 
sprouts, which usually grow much faster than the 
original tree did. And the process of thinning may 
thus be continued indefinitely, while the choicer trees 
are allowed to attain their stateliest proportions. 
And thus a rocky, sterile hill-side or knoll may be 
made to yield a crop annually after the first two or 
three years from planting, while growing trees of 
decided value. I judge that almost any land within 
fifty miles of a great city and not more than two 
miles from a railroad depot or from navigable water 
may thus be made to earn a good interest on $100 
per acre, after meeting all the cost of breaking up 
and planting. I confidently assert that many thou- 
sands of sterile, rocky acres, which now yield less 
than $5 per acre annually in pasturage, would net at 
least double that sum to the owner if wisely devoted 
to forest-trees. 

I have a hearty love of forests. They proffer gentle 
companionship to the thoughtful and rest to the 
overworked, fevered brain. Our streams will be 
fuller and less capricious, our gales less destructive, 
our climate more equable, when we shall have re- 
clothed our rugged slopes and rocky crests with 
trees. Timber grows yearly scarcer and dearer, when 
it ought to be becoming more plentiful and acces- 
sible, and would be if we devoted to trees all the 
land which we cultivate at a loss or fail to cultivate 



138 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

at all. Let our bojs be incited to gather seeds and 
plant nurseries ; let young trees be bought by the 
thousand where they now are by the dozen, and let 
ns all cooperate in covering our unsightly rocks and 
maldng glad our waste places by a superabundance 
of choice, thrifty, healthy trees. 

Many of our young men have a taste for adventure 
and excitement which leads them to the ocean, the 
mines, to Australia or some other far-off land recently 
and scantily peopled by civilized beings. I will not 
quarrel with their taste ; but I judge that there are 
openings for their enterprise and daring within the 
area of our own country. Let one thousand of them 
resolve to devote the next five years to planting for- 
ests on the treeless plains and virtual deserts of the 
Great Basin and on either side of it ; let them select 
locations where some acres may cheaply and surely 
be irrigated, and, having carefully provided them- 
selves with an abundance of the best seeds, let them 
start patches of woodland at points the most remote 
from present timber, until a thousand different forests 
— one to each of the associates — shall have been started 
and guarded till their roots have taken firm hold of 
the earth. I presume Congress would grant them 
preemptions to each section on which they thus 
planted at least forty acres of forest, and that most of 
these preemption rights could, within ten years, be 
sold to settlers for many times their original cost. 



XXIY. 



FETJIT-TEEES THE APPLE. 



If I were asked to say what single aspect of our 
economic condition most strikingly and favorably 
distinguished the people of our ITorthern States from 
these of most if not all other countries which I 
have traversed, I would point at once to the fruit- 
trees which so generally diversify every little as 
well as larger farm throughout these States, and are 
quite commonly found even on the petty holdings of 
the poorer mechanics and workmen in every village 
and in the suburbs and outskirts of every city. I 
can recall nothing like it abroad, save in two or three 
of the least mountainous and most fertile districts of 
north^ern Switzerland. Italy has some approach to it 
in the venerable olive-trees which surround or flank 
many, perhaps most, of her farm-houses, upholding 
grape-vines as ancient and nearly as large as them- 
selves ; but the average ISTew-England or Middle 
State homestead, with its ample Apple-orchard and 
its cluster of Pear, Cherry and Plum-trees surround- 
ing its house and dotting or belting its garden, has 
an air of comfort and modest thrift which I have 

(139) 



140 "WHAT I KXOW OF FARMING. 

nowhere else seen fairly equaled. Upland Yirginia 
and the mountainous portion of the States southward 
of her may in time surpass the most favored regions 
of the North in the abundance, variety and excellence 
of their fruits ; for the Peach and the Grape find here 
a congenial climate, while they are grown with diffi- 
culty, where they can be grown at all, in the l^orth ; 
but, up to tliis hour, I judge that our country north 
of the Potomac is better supplied with wholesome 
and palatable tree-fruits than any other portion of 
the earth's surface of equal or nearly equal area. 

On the whole, I deem it a misfortune that our 
Northern States were so admirably adapted to the 
Apple and kindred fruit-trees that our pioneer fore- 
fathers had little more to do than bury the seeds in 
the ground and wait a few years for the resulting 
fruit. The soil, formed of decayed trees and their 
foliage, thickly covered with the ashes of the primi- 
tive forest, was as genial as soil could be ; while the 
remaining woods, which still covered seven-eighths 
of the country, shut out or softened the cold winds 
of Winter and Sj^ring, rendering it less difficult, a 
century ago, to grow fine peaches in southern New- 
Hampshire than it now is in southern New- York. 
Devastating insects were precluded by those great, 
dense woods from difi'using themselves from orchard 
to orchard as they now do. Snows fell more heavily 
and lay longer then than now, protecting the roots 
from heavy frosts, and keeping back buds and blos- 
soms in Spring, to the signal advantage of the husband- 



FKUrr-TEEES THE APPLE. 141 

man. I estimate that my apple-trees would bear at least 
one-third more fruit if I could retard their blossom- 
ing a fortnight, so as to avoid the cold rains and cut- 
ting winds, often succeeded by frosts, which are apt 
to pay their unwelcome farewell visits just when my 
trees are in bloom or when the fruit is forming di- 
rectly thereafter. Hence, I say to every one who 
shall hereafter set an orchard, Give it the northwai^d 
slope of a hill if that be possible. Other things being 
equal, the orchard which blossoms latest will, in a 
series of years, yield most fruit, and will be most 
likely to bear when the Apple -crop of your vicinity 
proves a failure. I do not recommend storing ice to 
plant or bury under the trees in April, for that in- 
volves too much labor and expense ; yet I have no 
doubt that even that has been and sometimes might 
be done with profit. In the average, however, I 
judge that it would not pay. 

In locating and setting an orchard, the very first 
consideration is thorough drainage. ISTothing short 
of a destructive fire can be more injurious to an 
apple-tree than compelling it to stand throughout 
Winter and Spring in sour, stagnant water. Bar- 
renness, dead branches, and premature general decay, 
are the natural and righteous consequences of such 
crying abuse. There are many reasons for choosing 
sloping or broken ground for an apple-orchard, where- • 
of comparative exemption from frost and natural fa- j 
cility of drainage are the most obvious. A level field, I 
thoroughly un drained to-day, may, through neglect 



142 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

and the miscliiefs wronglit by burrowing animals, 
have become little better than a morass thirty years 
hence ; but an orchard set on a tolerably steep hill- 
side is reasonably secure against wet feet to the 
close of its natural life. 

A gravelly or sandy loam is generally preferred for 
orchards; yet I have known them to flourish and 
bear generously on heavy clay. Whoever has a 
gravelly field will wisely prefer this for Apples, not 
merely to clay but to sand as well. 

And, while many young orchards have doubtless 
been injured by immoderate applications of rank, 
green manures, I doubt that any man has ever yet 
bestowed too much care and expense on the prepa- 
ration of his ground for fruit-trees. Where ridges or 
plateaus of fast stone do not forbid, I would say, 
Turn over the soil to a depth of at least fifteen 
inches with a large plow and a strong team ; then 
lift and pulverize the subsoil to a depth of not less 
than nine inches ; apply all the Wood-ashes you can 
get, with one thousand bushels of Marl if you are in 
a Marl region ; if not, use instead from thirty to fifty 
bushels of quick Lime (oyster-shell if that is to be 
had) with one hundred loads per acre of Swamp 
Muck which has lain a year on dry upland, baking 
in the sun and wind; and now you may think of set- 
ting your trees. If your soil was rich Western prairie 
or Middle-State garden to begin with, you can 
dispense with all these fertilizers ; yet I doubt that 
there is an acre of Western prairie that would not be 



FEUIT-TEEES THE APPLE. 143 

improved bj the Lime or (perhaps better still) a 
smaller quantity of refuse Salt from a packing-house 
or meat retailing grocery. There are not many 
farms that would not repay the application of five 
bushels per acre of refuse Salt at twenty-five cents 
per bushel. 

Your trees once set — (and he who sets twenty trees 
per day as they should be set, with each root in its 
natural position, and the earth pressed firmly around 
its trunk, but no higher than as it originally grew, is \ 
a faithful, efiicient worker), I would cultivate the / 
land, (for the trees' sake), growing crops successively ' 
of Ruta Bagas, Carrots, Beets, and early Potatoes, 
but no grain whatever, for six or seven years, dis- 
turbing the roots of the trees as little as may be, and 
guarding their trunks from tug, or trace, or whiffle- 
tree, by three stakes set firmly in the ground about 
each tree, not so near it as to preclude constant culti- 
vation with the hoe inside as well as outside of the 
stakes, so as to let no weed mature in the field. Ap- 
ply from year to year well-rotted compost to the field 
in quantity sufficient fully to counterbalance the an- 
nual abstraction by your crops. Make it a law in- 
flexible and relentless that no animal s^.all be let 
into this orchard to forage, or for any purpose what- 
ever but to draw on manures, to till the soil, and to 
draw away the crops. Thus until the first blossoms 
begin to appear on the trees ; then lay down to grass 
without grain, unless it be a crop of Rye or Oats to be 
cut and carried ofi" for feed when not more than half 



144. WHAT I S2T0W OF FAUMING. 

grown, leaving the ground to the joung grass. Let 
the grass be mowed for the next two or three years, and 
thenceforward devote it to the pasturage of Swine, 
running over it with a scythe once or twice each Sum- 
mer to clear it of weeds, and taking out the Swine a 
few days before beginning to gather the Apples, but 
putting them back again the day after the harvest is 
completed. Let the Swine be sufficiently numerous 
and hungry to eat every apple that falls within a few 
hours after it is dropped, and to insure their rooting 
out every grub or worm that burrows in the earth 
beneath the trees, ready to spring up and apply him- 
self to mischief at the very season when you could 
best excuse his absence. T do not commend this as 
all, or nearly all, that should be done in resistance to 
the pest of insect ravage ; but I begin with the Hog 
as the orchardist's readiest, cheapest, most effective 
ally or servitor in the warfare he is doomed unceas- 
ingly to wage against the spoilers of his heritage. I 
will indicate some further defensive enginery in my 
next chapter. 



XXV. 



MOEE ABOUT APPLE-TEEES. 



Ik my opinion, Apple-trees, in most orchards, are 
planted too far apart and allowed to grow taller and 
spread their limbs more widely than is profitable. I 
judge that a pruner or picker should be able to reach 
the topmost twig of any tree with a ten-foot pole, 
and that no limb should be allowed to extend more 
than eight feet from the trunk whence it springs. 
Our Autumnal Equinox occurs before our Apples are 
generally ripe for harvest, and, finding our best trees 
bending under a heavy burden of fruit, its fierce gales 
are apt to make bad work with trees as well as ap- 
ples. The best tree I had, with several others, was 
thus ruined by an equinoctial tempest a few years 
since. Barren trees escape unharmed, while those 
heavily laden with large fruit are wrenched and 
twisted into fragments. And, even apart from this 
peril, a hundred weight of fruit at or near the ex- 
tremity of limbs which extend ten or twelve feet 
horizontally from the trunk, tax and strain a tree 
more than four times that weight growing within 
four or five feet of the trunk, and on limbs that 
maintain a semi-erect position. I difiidentlv sug- 

7 (H5) 



146 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

gest, therefore, that no apple-tree be allowed to ex- 
ceed fifteen feet in hight, nor to send a limb more 
than eight feet from its trunk, and that trees be set 
(diamond-fashion) twenty-four feet apart each way, 
instead of thirty-two, as some of mine were. I judge 
that the larger number of trees (Y2 per acre) will pro- 
duce more fruit in the average than the larger but 
fewer trees grown on squares of two by two rods to 
each, that they will thrive and bear longer, and tliat 
not one will be destroyed or seriously harmed by 
winds where a dozen would if allowed to grow as 
high and spread as far as they ^ould. 



Every apple-tree should be pruned each year of 
its life : that is, it should be carefully examined with 
intent to prune if that be found necessary. It should 
be pruned with a careful eye to giving it the proper 
shape, which, from the point where it first forks up- 
ward, should be that of a tea-cup, very nearly. I 
have seen young trees so malformed that they could 
rarely, if ever,bear fruit enough to render them profit- 
able. And the pruning should be so carefully, judi- 
ciously done from the outset that no wood two years 
old should ever be cut away. With old, malformed, 
diseased, worm-eaten, decaying trees, the best must 
be done that can be; but he who, pruning a tree that 
he set and has hitherto cared for, finds himself ob- 
liged to cut off a limb thicker than his thumb, may 
justly suspect himself of lacking a mastery of the art 
of fruit-growing. 



MORE ABOUT APPLE-TREES. 147 

Sprouts from the root of an apple-tree remind me 
of children who habitually play truant or are kept 
out of school. They not merely can never come to 
good, but they are a nuisance to the neighborhood 
and bring reproach on the community. 

The apple-grower should never forget that evevj 
producer needs to be fed in proportion to his product. 
If a cow gives twenty quarts of milk per day, she 
needs more grass or other food than if she gave but 
two quarts ; and an acre of orchard that yields a 
hundred barrels of Apples per annum needs some- 
thing given to the soil to balance the draft made 
upon it. Nature offers us good bargains; but she 
does not trust and w^ill not be cheated. When she 
offers a bushel of Corn for a bushel of dirty Salt, 
Shell Lime, or Wood-Ashes, a load of Hay for a 
load of Muck, we ought not to stint the measure, 
but pay her demand ungrudgingly. 



A-nd now a last word on Insects. 

My township ("N^ewcastle) is said to have formerly 
grown more Apples per annum than any other town- 
ship in the United States ; its apple-trees are still as 
numerous as ever, but their product has fallen off 
deplorably. I estimate the average yield of the last 
three years at less than a bushel per annum for each 
full-grown tree ; I think a majority of the trees have 
not borne a bushel each in all these three years. Un- 
seasonable frosts, storms, etc., have borne the blame 
of this barrenness — perhaps justly, if we consider 



148 WHAT I KNOW OF FAHJ^IING. 

only immediate causes — but the caterpillar and other 
vermin are, in my view, our more potent, though 
remoter, afflictions, l^ot less than four times within 
the last sixteen years have our trees been covered 
with nests and worms ; and I have seen whole or- 
chards stripped of nearly every leaf till they were 
as bare (of every thing but caterpillars) in July as 
they should have been in December. After the 
scourge had passed, the trees reclad tliemsel^es with 
leaves ; but they grew old under that visitation faster 
in one year than they would have done in ten of 
healthful fruit-bearing; and they are now prema- 
turely gray and moss-covered because of the terrible 
infliction. 

I lay down the general proposition that no man 
who harbors caterpillars has any moral right to 
Apples — that each grower should be required to 
make his choice between them. Slovenly farmers 
say, " there are so many of them that I cannot kill 
half so fast as they multiply." Then I say, cut down 
and burn up the trees you can best spare, until you 
have no more left than you can keep clear of worms. 

If it were the law of the land that whoever allowed 
caterpilli^rs to nest and breed in his fruit-trees should 
pay a heavy fine for each nest, we should soon be 
comparatively clear of the scourges. In the absence 
of such salutary regulation, one man fights them 
with persistent resolution, only to see his orchard 
again and again invaded and ravaged by the pests 
hatched and harbored by his careless neighbors. He 



MOKE ABOUT APPLE-TEEES. 149 

tlrns pays and repays the penalty of others' negli- 
gence and misdoing until, discouraged and demoral- 
ized, he abandons the hopeless struggle, and thence- 
forth repels the enemy from a few favorite trees 
around his dwelling, and surrenders his orchard to 
its fate. Thus bad laws (or no laws) are constantly 
making bad farmers. The birds that would help us 
to make head against our insect foes are slaughtered 
by reckless boys — many of them big enough to know 
better — and our perils and losses from enemies who 
would be contemptible if their numbers did not 
render them formidable increase from year to year. 
We must change all this ; and the first requisite of 
our situation is a firm alliance of the entire farming 
and fruit-growing interest defensive as to birds, offen- 
sive toward their destroyers, and toward the vermin 
multiplied and shielded by the ruthless massacre of 
our feathered friends. 

Since the foregoing was written we have had 
(in 1870) the greatest Apple-crop throughout our 
section that mine eyes did ever yet behold. It was 
so abundant that I could not sell all my cider-apples 
to the vinegar-makers, even at fifty cents per barrel. 
This establishes the continued capacity of our region 
to bear Apples, and should invite to the planting of 
new orchards and the fertilization and renovation of 
old ones. 



XXYI. 

HAT AND HAT-MAKING. 

The Grass-crop of this, as of many, if not most, 
other countries, is undoubtedly the most important 
of its annual products ; requiring bj far the largest 
area of its soil, and furnishing the principal food of 
its Cattle, and thus contributing essentially to the 
subsistence of its working animals and to the pro- 
duction of those Meats which form a large and con- 
stantly increasing proportion of the food of every 
civilized people. But I propose to speak in this es- 
say of that proportion of the Grass-crop — say 25 to 35 
per cent, of the whole — which is cut, cured and 
housed (or stacked) for Hay, and which is mainly fed 
out to animals in Winter and Spring, when frost and 
snow have divested the earth of herbage or rendered 
it inaccessible. 

The Seventh Census (1 850) returned the Hay-crop 
of the preceding year at 13,838,64:2 tuns, which the 
Eighth Census increased to 19,129,128 tuns as the 
product of 1859. Confident that most farmers un- 
der-estimate their Hay-crops, and that hundreds of 
thousands who do not consider themselves farmers, 
but who own or rent little homesteads of two to ten 
(150) 



HAY AND HAT-MAKING. 151 

acres each, keeping thereon a cow or two and often 
a horse, fail to make returns of the two to five tuns 
of Hay they annually produce, considering them too 
trivial, I estimate the actual Hay-crop of all our 
States and Territories for the current year at 
40,000,000 tuns, or about a tun to each inhabitant, al- 
though I do not expect the new Census to place it 
much, if any, above 25,000,000 tuns. The estimated 
average value of this crop is $10 (gold) per tun, 
making its aggregate value, at my estimate of its 
amount, $400,000,000 — rand the quantity is con- 
stantly and rapidly increasing. 

That quantity should be larger from the area de- 
voted to meadows, and the quality a great deal 
better. I estimate that 30,000,000 acres are annually 
mowed to obtain these 40,000,000 tuns of Hay, giving 
an average yield of IJ tuns per acre, while the average 
should certainly not fall below two tuns per acre. 
My upland has a gravelly, rocky soil, not natural to 
grass, and had been pastured to death for at least a 
century before I bought it ; yet it has yielded me an 
average of not less than 2i tuns to the acre for the 
last sixteen years, and will not yield less while I am 
allowed to farm it. My lowland (bog when I bought 
it) is bound henceforth to yield more ; but, while im- 
perfectly or not at all drained, it was of course a 
poor reliance — yielding bounteously in spots, in others, 
little or nothing. 

In nothing else is shiftless, slovenly farming so apt 
t( betray itself as in the culture of Grass and the 



152 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

management of grass lands. Pastures overgrown 
with bushes and cheqnered by quaking, miry bogs ; 
meadows foul with every weed, from white daisy np 
to the rankest brakes, with hill-sides that may once 
have been productive, but from which crop after 
crop has been taken and nothing returned to them, 
until their yield has shrunk to half or three -fourths 
of a tun of poor hay, these are the average indications 
of a farm nearly run out by the poorest sort of farm- 
ing. Such farms were common in the 'New England 
of my boyhood ; I trust they are less so to-day ; yet 
I seldom travel ten miles in any region north or east 
of the Delaware withont seeing one or more of them. 

Fifty years ago, I judge that the greater part of 
the hay made in ]N^ew-England was cut from sour, 
boggy land, that was devoted to grass simply because 
nothing else could be done with it. I have helped to 
carry the crop off on poles from considerable tracts on 
which oxen could not venture without miring. It were 
superfluous to add that no well-bred animal would 
eat snch stuff, unless the choice were between it and 
absolute starvation. In many cases, a very httle work 
done in opening the rudest surface-drains would have 
transformed these bogs into decent meadows, and the 
product, by the help of plowing or seeding, into un- 
exceptionable hay. 

There are not many farmers, apart from our wise 
and skillful dairymen, who use half enough grass- 
seed ; men otherwise thrifty often fail in this respect. 
If half our ordinary farmers would thoroughly seed 



HAY AND HAY-MAKING. 153 

down a full third of the area they -usnally cultivate, 
and devote to the residue the time and efforts they 
now give to the whole, they would grow more grain 
and vegetables, while the additional grass would be 
so much clear again. 

We sow almost exclusively Timothy and Clover, 
when there are at least 20 different grasses required 
by our great diversity of soils, and of these three or 
four might often be sown together with profit; es- 
pecially in seeding down fields intended for pasture, 
we might advantageously use a greater variety and 
abundance of seed. I believe that there are grasses 
not yet adopted and hardly recognized by the great 
body of our farmers — the buffalo-grass of the prairies 
for one — that will yet be grown and prized over a great 
part of our country. 

As for Hay-Making, my conviction is strong that 
our grass is cut in the average from two to three 
weeks too late, and that not only is our hay greatly 
damaged thereby, but our meadows needlessly im- 
poverished and exhausted. The formation and per- 
fection of seed always draw heavily upon the soil. 
A crop of grass cut when the earhest blossoms begin 
to drop — which, in my judgment, is the only right 
time — will not impoverish the soil half so much as 
will the same crop cut three weeks later ; while the 
roots of the earlier cut grass will retain their vitality 
at least thrice as long as though half the seed had 
ripened before the crop was harvested. Grass that 
was fully ripe when cut has lost at least half its nutri- 
7* 



154 WHAT I IGS'OW OF FAEMING. 

ment, which no chemistry can ever restore. Hay 
alone is dry fodder for a long Winter, especially for 
yonng stock; but hay cut after it was dead ripe, is 
proper nutriment for no animal whatever — not even 
for old horses, who are popularly supposed to like and 
thrive upon it. 

The fact that our farmers are too generally short- 
handed throughout the season of the Summer harvest, 
while it seems to explain the error I combat, renders 
it none the less disastrous and deplorable. I estimate 
the depreciation in the value of our hay-crop, by 
reason of late cutting, as not less than one-fifth ; and, 
when we consider that a full half of our farmers turn 
out their cattle to ravage and poach up their fields in 
quest of fodder a full month earlier than they should, 
because their hay is nearly or quite exhausted, the 
consequences of this error are seen to difi'use them- 
selves over the whole economy of the farm. 



From the hour in which grass falls under the Mower, 
it ought to be kept in motion until laid at rest in the 
stack or the barn ; keep stirring it with the tedder until 
it is ready to be raked into light winrows, and turn 
these over and over until they will answer to go upon 
the cart. In any bright, hot day, the grass mowed in 
the morning should be stacked before the dew falls 
at night ; while, if any is mowed after noon, it should 
be cocked and capped by sunset, even though it be 
necessary to open it out the next fair morning. 

I have a dream of hay -making, especially with re- 



HAY A^D HAY-MAKING. 165 

gard to clover, without allowing it to be scalded by 
fierce sunshine. In my dream, the grass is raked and 
loaded nearly as fast as cut, drawn to the barn-yard, 
and there pitched upon an endless apron, on which it 
is carried slowly through a drying-house, heated to 
some 200° Fahrenheit by steam or by charcoal in a 
furnace below, somewhat after the manner of a hop- 
kiln. While passing slowly through this heated 
atmosphere, the grass is continually forked up and 
shaken so as to expose every lock of it to the drying 
heat, until it passes off thereby deprived of its moisture 
and is precipitated into a mow or upon a stack-bottom 
at the opposite side ; load after load being pitched upon 
the apron continuously, and the drying process going 
steadil}^ forward by night as well as by day, and with- 
out regard to the weather outside. I do not assert 
that this vision will ever be realized ; but I have 
known dreams as wild as this transformed by time 
and thought into beneficent realities. 

I ask no one to share my dreams or sympathise 
with their drift and purpose. I only insist that Hay- 
making, as it is managed all around me, is ruder in 
its processes and more uncertain in its results than it 
should or need be. We cut our grass rapidly and 
well ; we gather and house it with tolerable efiiciency ; 
but we cure much of it imperfectly and wastefully. 
The fact that most of it is over-ripe when cut aggra- 
vates the pernicious effects of its subsequent exposure 
to dew and rain ; and the net result is damaged fod- 
der which is at once unpalatable and innutritions. 



XXYII. 

PEACHES — PE AES CHERRIES — GRAPES . 

Our harsh, capricious climate north of the lati- 
tudes of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and. St. Louis — so 
much severer than that of corresponding latitudes 
in Europe — is unfavorable, or at least very trying, to 
all the more delicate and luscious Fruits, berries ex- 
cepted. Except on our Pacific coast, of which the 
Winter temperature is at least ten degrees milder 
than that of the Atlantic, the finer Peaches and 
Grapes are grown with difiicultj north of the for- 
tieth degree of latitude, save in a few specially fa- 
vored localities, whereof the southern shore of Lake 
Erie is most noted, though part of that of Lake On- 
tario and of the west coast of Lake Michigan are 
likewise well adapted to the Peach. 

It is not the mere fact that the mercury in Eahren- 
heit's thermometer sometimes ranges below zero, and 
the earth is deeply frozen, but the suddenness where- 
with such rigor succeeds and is succeeded by a tem- 
perature above the freezing point, that proves so in- 
hospitable to the most valued Tree-Eruits. And, as 
the dense forests which formerly clothed the AUe- 
(156) 



PEACHES PEARS — CHEEKIES GRAPES. 157 

glienies and the Atlantic slope, are year by year 
swept away, the severity of our " cold snaps," and 
the celerity with which they appear and disappear, 
are constantly aggravated. A change of 60°, or 
from 50° above to 10° below zero, between morning 
and the following midnight, soon followed by an 
equally rapid retnrn to an average November tem- 
perature, often proves fatal even to hardy forest-trees. 
I have had the Red Cedar in my woods killed by 
scores during an open, capricious Winter ; and my 
observation indicates the warmest spots in a forest as 
those where trees are most likely to be thus destroyed. 
After an Arctic night, in which they are frozen solid, 
a bright sun sends its rays into the warmest nooks, 
whence the wind is excluded, and wholly or partially 
thaws out the smaller trees; which are suddenly frozen 
solid again so soon as the sunshine is withdrawn ; and 
this partly explains to my mind the fact that peach- 
buds are often killed in lower and level portions of 
an orchard, while they retain their vitality on the 
hill-side aud at its crest, not 80 rods distant from 
those destroyed. The fact that the colder air de- 
scends into and remains in the valleys of a rolling 
district contributes also to the correct explanation 
of a phenomenon which has puzzled some obser- 
vers. 

Unless in a favored locality, it seems to me unad- 
visable for a farmer who expects to thrive mainly by 
the production of Grain and Cattle, to attempt the 
growing of Mie finer Fruits, except for the use of his 



158 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

own family. In a majority of cases, a multiplicity 
of cares and labors precludes his giving to his 
Peaches and Grapes, his Plums and Quinces, the 
seasonable and persistent attention which they abso- 
lutely require. Quite commonly, a farmer visits 
a grand nursery, sees with admiration its trees 
and vines loaded with the most luscious Fruits, 
and rashly infers that he has only to buy a good 
stock of like Trees and Yines to insure himself 
an abundance of delicious fruit. So he buys and 
sets; but with no such preparation of the soil, and 
no such care to keep it mellow and free from weeds, 
or to baffle and destroy predatory insects, as the 
nurseryman employs. Hence the utter disappoint- 
ment of his hopes ; borers, slugs, caterpillars, and 
every known or unknown species of insect enemies, 
prey upon his neglected favorites. At intervals, 
some domestic animal or animals get among them, 
and break down a dozen in an hour. So, the far 
greater number come to grief, without having had 
one fair chance to show what they could do, and the 
farmer jumps to the conclusion that the nurseryman 
was a swindler, and the trees he sells scarcely relat- 
ed to those whose abundant and excellent fruits 
tempted him to buy. I counsel every farmer to con- 
sider thoughtfully the treatment absolutely required 
for the production of the finer Fruits before he 
allows a nurserymaii to make a bill against him, and 
not expect to grow Duchesse Pears as easily as 
blackberries, or lonas and Catawbas as readily as he 



PEACHES PEAKS CHERRIES — GRAPES. 159 

does Fox-grapes on the willows which overhang his 
brook ; for if he does he will surelj be disappointed. 

Some of our hardier and coarser Grapes — the Con- 
cord preeminent among them — are grown with con- 
siderable facility over a wide extent of our country ;. 
and many farmers, having planted them in congenial 
soil, and tended them well throughout their infancy, 
are rewarded by a bounteous product for two or 
three years. Believing their success assured, they 
imagine that their vines may henceforth be neglect- 
ed, and in the course of two or three more years they 
are often utterly ruined. I know that there are 
wild grapes of some value, in the absence of better, 
which thrive and bear without attention ; but I 
do not believe that any grape wliich will sell in 
a market where good fruit was ever seen, can 
be grown north of Philadelphia but by constant 
care and labor, or at a cost of less than ^ve cents per 
pound, under the most judicious and skillful treat- 
ment. In California, and I presume in most of our 
States south of the Potomac and Ohio, choice grapes 
may be grown more abundantly and more cheaply. 
Tet I think the localities are few and far between in 
which a tun of good gi'apes can be grown as cheaply 
as a tun of wheat, under the most judicious cultiva- 
tion in either case. 

I do not mean to discourage grape-growing; on 
the contrary, I would have every farmer, even so far 
north as Vermont and "Wisconsin, experiment cau- 
tiously with a dozen of the most promising varieties, 



160 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMENG. 

including always tlie more hardy, in the hope of find- 
ing some one or more adapted to his soil, and capable 
of enduring his climate. Even in France, the land 
of the vine, one farm will produce a grape which the 
very next will not : no man can satisfactorily say 
why. The farmer, who has tried half a dozen grapes 
and failed with all, should not be deterred from fur- 
ther experiments, for the very next may prove a suc- 
cess. I would only say, Be moderate in your expecta- 
tions and careful in your experiments; and never 
risk even $100 on a vineyard, till you have ascer- 
tained, at a cost of $5 or under, whether the species 
you are testing will thrive and bear on your soil. 

In my own case, my upland mainly sloping to the 
west, vdth a hill rising directly south of it, I have 
had no luck with Grapes, and I have wasted little 
time or means upon them. I have done enough to 
show that they can be grown, even in such a locality 
but not to profit or satisfaction. 

I would advise the farmer who proposes to grow 
Pears, Peaches, and Quinces, for home use only or 
mainly, to select a piece of dry, gravelly or sandy 
loam, underdrain it thoroughly, plow or trench it 
very deeply, and fertilize it generously, in good part 
with ashes and with leaf -mold from his woods. Lo- 
cate the pig-pen on one side of it, fence it strongly, 
and let the pigs have the run of it for a good portion 
of each year. In this plat or yard, plant half a dozen 
Cherry and as many Pear trees of choice varieties, 
the Bartlett foremost among them ; keep clear of all 



PEACHES — PEAES — CHEREIES — GRAPES. 161 

dwarfs, and let your choicest trees liave a chance to 
run under the pig-pen if they will. Plant here also, 
if your climate does not forbid, a dozen well-chosen 
Peach-trees, and two each year thereafter to replace 
those that will soon be dying out ; and give half a 
dozen Quinces moist and rich locations by the side of 
youi" fences ; surrounding each tree with stakes or 
pickets that will preclude too great familiarity on the 
part of the swine, and will not prevent a sharp scru- 
tiny for borers in their season. Do not forget that a 
fruit-tree is like a cow tied to an immovable stake, 
from which you cannot continue to draw a pail of 
milk per day unless you carry her a liberal supply of 
food; and every Fall cart in half a dozen loads of 
muck from some convenient swamp or pond for your 
pigs to turn over. Should they leave any weeds, cut 
them with a scythe as often as they seem to need it ; 
never allowing one to ripen seed. There may be 
easier and surer ways to obtain choice fruits ; but 
this one commends itself to my judgment as not sur- 
passed by any other. I think few have grown fruits 
to profit but those who make this a specialty ; and I 
feel that disappointment in fruit-culture is by no 
means near the end. You can grow Plums, or 
Grapes, or Peaches, outside of the climate most con- 
genial to them, but this is a work wherein success is 
Hkely to cost more than its worth. Try it first on a 
small scale, if you will try it ; and be sure you do it 
thoroughly. 



XXYIII. 

GEAm-GEOWING — EAST AITD WEST. 

1 DISCLAIM all pretensions to ability to teach West- 
ern farmers how to grow Indian Corn abundantly 
and profitably, while I cheerfully admit that they 
have taught me somewhat thoroughly worth know- 
ing. In my boyhood, I hoed Corn diligently for 
weeks at a time, drawing the earth from between the 
rows up about the stalks to a depth of three or four 
inches; thus forming hills which the West has since 
taught me to be of no use, but rather a detriment, 
embarrassing the eiforts of the growing, hungry 
plants to throw ont their roots extensively in every 
direction, and subjecting them to needless injury 
from drouth. I am thoroughly convinced that Corn, 
properly planted, will, like Wheat and all other 
grains, root itself just deep enough in the ground, 
and that to keep down all weeds and leave the sur- 
face of the cornfield open, mellow and perfectly flat, 
is the best as well as the cheapest way to cultivate 
Corn. And I do not believe that so much human 

food, with so little labor, is produced elsewhere on 

(162) 



GKAIN-GEOWINQ EAST AND WEST. 163 

earth as in tlie spacious fields of Wheat and Corn in 
our grand Mississippi valley. 

And jet I have seen in that valley many ample 
stretches covered with Corn, whereof the tillage 
seemed susceptible of improvement. Riding between 
these, great corn-fields in October, after everything 
standing thereon had been killed by frost, it seemed 
to my observation that, while the corn-crop was fair, 
the weed-crop was far more luxuriant; so that, if 
everything had been cut clean from the ground, and 
the corn and the weeds placed in opposite scales, the 
latter would have weighed down the former. I can- 
not doubt that the cultivation, or lack of cultivation, 
which produces or permits such results, is not merely 
slovenly, but unthrifty. 

The West is for the present, as for a generation 
she has been, the granary of the East. In my judg- 
ment, she will not long be content to remain so. 
Fifty years ago, the Genesee valley supplied most of 
the wheat and flour imported into ISTew-England ; ten 
years later, ]^orthern Ohio was our principal re- 
source; ten years later still, Michigan, Indiana, 
northern Illinois, and eastern Wisconsin, had been 
added to our grain-growing territory. Another de- 
cade, and our flour manufacturers had crossed the 
Mississippi, laying Iowa and Minnesota under liberal 
contributions, while western New- York had ceased 
to grow even her own bread stufls, and Ohio to pro- 
duce one bushel more than she needed for home con- 
sumption. Can we doubt that this steady recession 



164 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

of our Egypt, onr Hungary, is destined to continue ? 
Twenty-three years ago, when I first rode out from 
the then rising village of Chicago to see the Illinois 
prairies, nearly every wagon I met was loaded with 
wheat, going into Chicago, to be sold for about fifty 
cents per bushel, and the proceeds loaded back in the 
form of lumber, groceries, and almost everything 
else, grain excepted, needed by the pioneers, then 
dotting, thinly and irregularly, that whole region 
with their cabins, l^ow, I presume the district I 
then traversed produces hardly more grain than it 
consumes ; taking Illinois altogether, I doubt that 
she will grow her own breadstufis after 1880 ; not 
that she will be unable to produce a large surplus, 
but that her farmers will have decided that they can 
use their lands otherwise to greater advantage. Iowa 
and Minnesota will continue to export grain for per- 
haps twenty years longer ; but even their time will 
come for saying, " ISTew-York and New-England (not 
to speak of Old England) are too far away to furnish 
profitable markets for such bulky products ; the cost 
of transportation absorbs the larger part of the cargo. 
We must export instead Wool, Meat, Lard, Butter, 
Cheese, Hops, and various Manufactures, whereof the 
freight will range from 2 up to not more than 25 per 
cent, of the value." They will thus save their soil from 
the tremendous exaction made by taking grain-crop 
after grain-crop persistently, which long ago ex- 
hausted most of ]N'ew-England and eastern l^ew- 
York cf wheat-forming material, and has since 



GEAIN-GEOWING EAST AND WEST. 165 

wrought the same deplorable result in our rich Gen- 
esee valley ; while eastern Pennsylvania, though set- 
tled nearly two centuries ago, having pursued a more 
rational and provident system of husbandry, grows 
excellent wheat-crops to this day. 

I insist that the States this side of the Delaware, 
though they will draw much grain from the Canadas 
after the political change that cannot be far distant, 
will be compelled to grow a very considerable share 
of their own breadstuffs ; that the West will cease to 
supply them unless at prices which they will deem ex- 
orbitant ; and that grain-growing eastward of a line 
drawn from Baltimore due north to the Lakes will 
have to be very considerably extended. Let us see, 
then, whether this might not be done with profit even 
now, and whether the East is not unwise in having so 
generally abandoned grain-growing. 

I leave out of the account most of ISTew-England, as 
well as of Eastern l^ew-York, and the more rugged 
portions of JNTew- Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the 
rocky, hilly, swampy face of the coimtry seems to 
forbid any but that patchy cultivation, wherein 
machinery and mechanical power can scarcely be 
made available, and which seem, therefore, perma- 
nently fated to persevere in a system of agriculture 
and horticulture not essentially unlike that they now 
exhibit. In the valleys of the Penobscot, the Ken- 
nebec, the Hudson, and of our smaller rivers, there 
are considerable tracts absolutely free from these 
natural impediments, whereon a larger and more 



I 

166 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

efficient husbandry is perfectly practicable, even 
now ; but these intervales are generally the property 
of many owners; are cut up by roads and fences; 
and are held at high prices : so that I will simply 
pass them by, and take for illustration the "Pine 
Barrens " of Southern New-Jersey, merely observing 
that what I say of them is equally applicable, with 
slight modifications, to large portions of Long Island, 
Delaware, Maryland, Yirginia, and the Carolinas. 

The " Pine Barrens " of J^ew- Jersey are a marine 
deposit of several hundred feet in depth, mainly sand, 
with which more or less clay is generally intermingled, 
while there are beds and even broader stretches of 
this material nearly or quite pure ; the clay some- 
times underlying the sand at a depth of 10 to 30 or 
40 inches. Yast deposits of muck or leaf-mold, often 
of many acres in extent and from two to twenty feet 
in depth, are very common; so that hardly any por- 
tion of the dry or sandy land is two miles distant 
from one or more of them, while some is usually 
much nearer ; and half the entire region is underlaid 
by at least one stratum of the famous marl (formed 
of the decomposed bones of gigantic marine monsters 
long ago extinct) which has already played so import- 
ant and beneficent a part in the renovation and fer- 
tilization of large districts in Monmouth, Burlington, 
Salem, and other counties. 

Let us suppose now that a farmer of ample means 
and generous capacity should purchase four hundred 
acres of these " barrens," with intent to produce 



GEAIN-GKOWING EAST AKD WEST. 167 

therefrom, not sweet potatoes, melons, and the 
" truck " to which Southern Jersey is so largely de- 
voted, but substantial Grain and Meat; and let us 
see whether the enterprise would probably pay. 

Let us not stint the outlay, but, presuming the 
tract to be eligibly located on a railroad not too dis- 
tant from some good marl-bed, estimate as follows : 

Purchase-money of 400 acres at $25 per acre $10,000 

Clearing, grubbing, fencing and breaking up ditto at $20 

per acre, over and above the proceeds of the wood 8,000 

One thousand bushels of best Marl per acre, at 6 cents per 

bushel delivered 24,000 

One hundred loads of Swamp Muck, per acre, at 50 cents 
per load 20,000 

Fifty bushels (unslaked) of Oyster-shell Lime (to compost 
with the Muck), per acre, at 25 cents per bushel, deliv- 
ered 5,000 

One hundred tuns of Bone Flour at $50 per tun 5,000 

[Net cost, $180 per acre.] Total $72,000 

I believe that this tract, divided by light fences 
into four fields of 100 acres each, and seeded in rota- 
tion to Corn, Wheat, Clover and other grasses, would 
produce fully 60 bushels of Corn and 30 of Wheat per 
acre, with not less than 3 tuns of good Hay; and that 
by cutting, steaming, and feeding the stalks and straw 
on the place, not pasturing, but keeping up the stock, 
and feeding them, as indicated in a former chapter 
of these essays, and selling their product in the form 
of Milk, Butter, Cheese and Meat, a greater profit 
would be realized than could be from a like invest- 



168 WHAT I KXOW OF FARMING. 

ment in Iowa or Kansas. The soil is warm, readily 
frees itself, or is freed, from surplus water ; is not 
addicted to weeds ; may be plowed at least 200 days 
in a year ; may be sowed or planted in the Spring, 
when Minnesota is yet solidly frozen ; while the crop, 
early matured, is on hand to take advantage of any 
sudden advance in the European or our own seaboard 
markets. Labor, also, is cheaper and more rapidly 
procured in the neighborhood of this great focus of 
immigration than it is or can be in the West ; and 
our capable farmers may take their pick of the work- 
ers thronging hither from Europe, at the moment of 
their landing on om* shore. Of course, the owner of 
such an estate as I have roughly outlined, would be 
likely to keep a part of his purchase in timber, im- 
proving the quality thereof by cutting out the less 
desirable trees, trimming up the rest, and planting 
new ones among them ; and he would be almost cer- 
tain to devote some part of his farm annually to the 
growth of Eoots, Yegetables, and Fruits. But I have 
aimed to show only that he would grow grain here 
at a profit, and I think I have succeeded. His 60 
bushels of corn (shelled) per acre could be sold at his 
crib, one year with another, for 60 silver dollars ; and 
he need seldom wait a month after husking it for 
customers who would gladly take his grain and pay 
the money for it. This would be just about double 
what the Iowa or Missouri farmer can expect to 
average for his Corn. The abundant fodder would 
also be worth in New- Jersey at least double its value 



GRAES'-GEOWrNG EAST AND WEST. 169 

in Iowa ; and I judge that the farmer able to buy, 
prepare, fertilize, and cultivate 1,200 acres of the 
Jersey " barrens," could make more than thrice the 
profit to be realized by the owner of 400 acres. He 
would plow and seed as well as thrash, shell, cut stalks 
and straw, and prepare the food of his animals, wholly 
by steam-power, and would soon learn to cultivate a 
square mile at no greater expense than is now involved 
in the as perfect tillage of 200 acres. 

This essay is not intended to prove that Grain is 
not or may not be profitably cultivated at the West, 
nor that it is unadvisable for Eastern farmers to 
migrate thither in order so to cultivate it. What I 
maintain is, that Wheat, Indian Corn, and nearly all 
our great food staples, may also be profitably pro- 
duced on the seaboard, and that thousands of square 
miles, now nearly or quite unproductive, may be 
wisely and profitably devoted to such production. Let 
us regard, therefore, without alarm, the prospect of 
such a development and diversification of Western 
Industry as will render necessary a large and perma- 
nent extension (or rather revival) of Eastern grain- 
growing. 



8 



XXIX. 

ESCULENT ROOTS POTATOES. 

In no other form can so large an amount and value 
of human food be obtained from an acre of ground as 
in that of edible roots or tubers ; and of these the 
Potato is bj far the most acceptable, and in most 
general use. Our ancestors, it is settled, were desti- 
tute and ignorant of the Potato prior to the discov- 
ery of America, though Europe would now find it 
difficult to subsist her teeming millions without it. 
In travelling pretty widely over that continent, I 
cannot remember that I found any considerable dis- 
trict in which the Potato was not cultivated, though 
Ireland, western England, and northern Switzerland, 
with a small portion of northern Italy, are impressed 
on my mind as the most addicted to tiie growth of 
this esculent. Other roots are eaten occasionally, by 
way of variety, or as giving a relish to ordinary food ; 
but the Potato alone forms part of the every-day diet 
alike of prince and peasant. It is an almost indis- 
pensable ingredient of the feasts of Dives, while it is 
the cheapest and commonest resort for satiating or 

moderating the hunger of Lazarus. I recollect hear- 
(170) 



ESCULENT ROOTS POTATOES. 171 

jng my parents, fifty years ago, relate how, in their 
childhood and youth, the poor of New-England, when 
the grain-crop of that region was cut short, as it often 
was, were obliged to subsist through the following 
Winter mainly on Potatoes and Milk; and I then 
accorded to those unfortunates of the preceding gen- 
eration a sympathy which I should now considerably 
abate, provided the Potatoes were of good quality. 
Roasted Potatoes, seasoned with salt and butter and 
washed down with bounteous draughts of fresh but- 
termilk, used in those days to be the regular supper 
served up in farmers' homes after a churning of cream 
into butter; and I have since eaten costly suppers that 
were not half so good. 

The Potato, say some accredited accounts, was first 
brought to Europe from Yirginia, by Sir "Walter 
Paleigh in 1586 or 1587 ; but I do not believe the 
story. Authentic tradition affirms that the Potato 
was utterly unknown in E'ew-England, or at all 
events east of the Connecticut, when the Scotch- 
Irish who first settled Londonderry, IT. H., came 
over from old Londonderry, Ireland, bringing the 
Potato with them. They spent the Winter of 1719 
in different parts of Massachusetts and Maine — quite 
a number of them at Haverhill, Mass., where they 
gave away a few Potatoes for seed, on leaving for 
their own chosen location in the Spring; and they 
afterward learned that the English colonists, who re- 
ceived them, tried hard to find or make the seed-balls 
edible the next Fall, but were obliged to give it up as 



172 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMmG. 

a bad job, leaving the tubers untouched and unsus- 
pected in the ground. 

I doubt that the Potato was found growing by 
Europeans in any part of this country, unless it be in 
that we have acquired from Mexico. It is essentially 
a child of the mountains, and I presume it grew wild 
nowhere else than on the sides of the great chain 
which traversed Spanish America, at a height of from 
5,000 to 8,000 feet above the surface of the ocean. 
Here it found a climate cooled by the elevation and 
moistened by melting snows from above and by fre- 
quent showers, yet one which seldom allowed the 
ground to be frozen to any considerable depth, while 
the pure and bracing atmosphere was congenial to its 
nature and requirements. In this country, the Potato 
is hardiest and thriftiest among the White Mountains 
of New-Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont, 
on the Catskills and kindred elevations in our own 
State, and in similar regions of Pennsly vania and the 
States further South and West. 

My own place is at least 15 miles from, and 500 feet 
above. Long Island Sound ; yet I cannot make the 
Potato, by the most generous treatment, so prolific 
as it was in New-Hampshire in my boyhood, where I 
dug a bushel from 14 hills, grown on rough, hard 
ground, but which, having just been cleared of a 
thick growth of bushes and briars, was probably 
better adapted to this crop than though it had been, 
covered an inch deep with barn-yard manure. 

He who has a tolerably dry, warm, or sandy soil, 



ESCULENT BOOTS POTATOES. 1Y3 

covered two or three inches deep with decayed or 
decaying leaves and brush, may count with confi- 
dence on raising from it a good crop of Potatoes, 
provided his seed be sound and healthy. On the 
other hand, all authorities agree that animal ma- 
nures, unless very thoroughly rotted and intimately 
mixed with the soil, are injurious to the quality of 
Potatoes grown thereon, stimulating any tendency 
to disease, if they do not originally produce such 
disease. I believe that Swamp Muck, dug in Sum- 
mer or Autumn, deposited on a dry bank or glade, 
and cured of its acidity by an admixture of Wood- 
Ashes, of Lime, or of Salt (better still, of Lime and 
Salt chemically compounded by dissolving the Salt 
in the least possible quantity of Water, and slaking 
the lime with that Water), forms an excellent ferti- 
lizer for Potatoes, if administered with a liberal 
hand. A bushel of either of these alkalies to a cord 
of muck is too little ; the dose should be doubled if 
possible ; but, if the quantity be small, mix it more 
carefully, and give it all the time you can wherein 
to operate upon the muck before applying the mixture 
to your fields. 

Where the muck is not easily to be had, yet the 
soil is thin and poor, I would place considerable 
reliance on deep plowing and subsoiling in the Fall, 
and cross-plowing just before planting in the Spring. 
Give a good dressing of Plaster, not less than 200 
lbs. to the acre, directly after the Fall plowing ; if 
you have Ashes, scatter them liberally in the drill or 



174 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

hill as you plant ; and, if you have them not, supply 
their place with Super-phosphate or Bone-dust. I 
think many formers will be agreeably surprised by 
the additional yield which will accrue from this treat- 
ment of their soil. 

Those who have no swamp muck, and feel that 
they can afford the outlay, may, by plowing or sub- 
soiling early in the Fall, seeding heavily with rye, 
and turning this under when the time comes for 
planting in the Spring, improve both crop and soil 
materially. But even to these I would say : Apply 
the Gypsum in the Fall, and the Ashes or Lime and 
Salt mixture in the Spring; and now, with good 
seed and good luck, you will be reasonably sure 
of a bounteous harvest. If a farmer, having a 
poor worn-out field of sandy loam, wants to do 
his very best by it, let him plow, subsoil, sow rye 
and plaster in the Fall, as above indicated, turn this 
under, and sow buckwheat late in the next Spring; 
plow this under in turn when it has attained its 
growth, and sow to clover ; turn this down the fol- 
lowing Spring, and plant to late potatoes, and he 
will not merely obtain a large crop, but have his 
land in admirable condition for whatever may follow. 

I am quite well aware that such an outlay of labor 
and seed, with an entire loss of crop for one season, 
will seem to many too costly. I do not advise it ex- 
cept under peculiar circumstances ; and yet I am 
confident that there are many fields that would be 
doubled in value by such treatment, which would 



ESCULENT EOOTS — POTATOES. 175 

riclilj repay all its cost. That most farmers could 
not afford thus to treat their entire farms at once, is 
very true ; yet it does not follow that they might not 
deal with field after field thus thoroughly, living on 
the products of 40 or 50 acres, while they devoted five 
or six annually to the work of thorough renovation. 

A quarter of a century ago, we were threatened 
with a complete extinction of the Potato, as an 
article of food : the stalks, when approaching or just 
attaining maturity, were suddenly smitten with fatal 
disease — usually, after a warm rain followed by scald- 
ing sunshine — the growing tubers were speedily af- 
fected ; they rotted in the ground, and they rotted 
nearly as badly if dug ; and whole townships could 
hardly show a bushel of sound Potatoes. 

A desolating famine in Ireland, which swept away 
or drove into exile nearly two millions of her people, 
was the most striking and memorable result of 
this wide-spread disaster. For several succeeding 
seasons, the Potato was similarly, though not so ex- 
tensively, affected; and the fears widely expressed 
that the day of its usefulness was over, seemed to 
have ample justification. Speaking generally, the 
Potato has never since been so hardy or prolific as it 
was half a century ago ; it has gradually recovered, 
however, from its low estate, and, though the malady 
still lingers, and from time to time renews its rav- 
ages in different locahties, the farmer now plants 
judiciously and on fit ground, with a reasonable hope 
that his labor will be duly rewarded. 



176 WHAT I KNOW OF FAE:MmG. 

It seems to be generally si<p:eiid thac clayey soils 
are not adapted to its grou'li ; tliat, if the quantity 
of the crop be not stiiitod, its quality is pretty sure 
to be inferior ; and I. bv-Ai personally testify that the 
planting of Potatueb o.i wet soil — that is, on swampy 
or spongy land which has not been thoroughly drain- 
ed and sweetened — is a hopeless, thriftless labor — ■ 
that the crop will seldom be worth the seed. 

As to the ten or a dozen different insects to which 
the Potato-rot has been attributed, I regard them all 
as consequences, not causes ; attracted to prey on the 
plan.t by its sickly, weakly condition, and not really 
responsible for that condition. If any care for my 
reasons, let him refer to what I have said of the 
Wheat-plant and its insect enemies.* 

There has been much discussion as to the kind of 
seed to be planted ; and I think the result has been 
a pretty general conviction that it is better to cut the 
tuber into pieces having two or three eyes each, 
than to plant it whole, since the whole Potato sends up 
a superfluity of stalks, with a like effect on the crop to 
that of putting six or eight kernels of corn in each hill. 

Small Potatoes are immature, unripe, and of course 
should never be planted, since their progeny will be 
feeble and sickly. Select for seed none but thor- 
oughly ripe Potatoes, and the larger the better. 

My own judgment favors planting in drills rather 
than hills, with ample space for working between 
them ; not less than 30 inches : the seed being drop- 

* See Chapter XXII. 



ESCULENT ROOTS POTATOES. 177 

ped about 6 inches apart in the drill. The soil must 
be deep and mellow, for the Potato suffers from 
drouth much sooner than Indian Corn or almost any 
other crop usually grown among us. I believe in 
covering the seed from 2 to 2| inches; and I hold to 
flat or level culture for this as for everything else. 
Planting on a ridge made by turning two furrows 
together may be advisable where the land is wet ; 
but then wet land never can be made fit for cultiva- 
tion, except by underd raining. And I insist upon 
setting the rows or drills well apart, because I hold 
that the soil should often be loosened and stirred to 
a good depth with the subsoil plow ; and that this 
process should be persevered in till the plant is in 
blossom. Hardly any plant will pay better for per- 
sistent cultivation than the Potato. 

As to varieties, I will only say that planting the 
tubers for seed is an unnatural process, which tends 
and must tend to degeneracy. The new varieties 
now most prized will certainly run out in the course of 
twenty or thirty years at furthest, and must be re- 
placed from time to time by still newer, grown from 
the seed. This creation of new species is, and must 
be, a slow, expensive process; since not one in a 
hundred of these varieties possess any value. I do n't 
quite believe in selling — I mean in buying — Potatoes 
at $1 per pound ; but he who originates a really 
valuable new Potato deserves a recompense for his in- 
dustry, patience, and good fortune; and I shall be 
glad to learn that he receives it. 



XXX. 

BOOTS— -TTJENIPS — ^BEETS — CAEEOTS. 

If there be any who still hold that this country 
must ultimately rival that magnificent Turnip -cul- 
ture which has so largely transformed the agricul- 
tural industry of England and Scotland, while sig- 
nally and beneficently increasing its annual product, 
I judge that time wiU. prove them mistaken. The 
striking diversity of climate between the opposite 
coasts of the Atlantic forbids the realization of their 
hopes. The British Isles, with a considerable portion 
of the adjacent coast of Continental Europe, have a 
climate so modified by the Gulf Stream and the ocean 
that their Summers are usually moist and cool, their 
Autumns still more so, and their Winters rarely so 
cold as to freeze the earth considerably ; while our 
Summers and Autumns are comparatively hot and 
dry ; our Winters in part intensely cold, so as to freeze 
the earth solid for a foot or more. Hence, every 
variety of turnip is exposed here in. its tenderer stages 
to the ravages of every devouring insect ; while the 
1st of December often, finds the soil of all but our 
Southern and Pacific States so frozen that cannon- 

078) 



ROOTS TUENTPS BEETS — CAEROTS. 1Y9 

wheels would hardly track it, and roots not previously 
dug up must remain fast in the earth for weeks and 
often, for months. Hence, the turnip can never grow 
so luxuriantly, nor be counted on with such certainty, 
here as in Great Britain ; nor can animals be fed on 
it in Winter, except at the heavy cost of pulling or 
digging, cutting off the tops and carefully housing in 
Autumn, and then slicing and feeding out in Winter. 
It is manifest that turnips thus handled, however 
economically, cannot compete with hay and corn- 
fodder in our Eastern and Middle States ; nor with 
these and the cheaper species of grain in the West, 
as the daily Winter food of cattle. 

Still, I hold that our stock-growing farmers profit- 
ably may, and ultimately will, grow sorne turnips to 
be fed out to their growing and working animals. 
A good meal of turnips given twice a week, if not 
oftener, to these, will agreeably and usefully break 
the monotony of living exclusively on dry fodder, and 
will give a relish to their hay or cut stalks and straw, 
which cannot fail to tell upon their appetite, growth 
and thrift. Let our cattle-breeders begin with grow- 
ing an acre or two each of Swedes per annum, so as 
to give their stock a good feed of them, sliced thin 
in an effective machine, at least once in each week, 
and I feel confident that they will continue to grow 
turnips, and will grow more and more of them 
throughout future years. 

The Beet seems to me better adapted to our 
elimate, especially south of the fortieth degree of 



180 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

north latitude, than any variety of the Turnip with 
which I am acquainted, and destined, in the good 
time coming, when we shall have at least doubled the 
average depth of our soil, to very extensive cultiva- 
tion among us. I am not regarding either of these 
roots with reference to its use as human food, since 
our farmers generally understand that use at least 
as well as I do ; nor will I here consider at length 
the use of the Beet in the production of Sugar. I 
value that use highly, believing that millions of the 
poorer classes throughout Europe have been enabled 
to enjoy Sugar through its manufacture from the 
Beet who would rarely or never have tasted that 
luxury in the absence of this manufacture. The 
people of Europe thus made familiar with Sugar can 
hardly be fewer than 100,000,000; and the number is 
annually increasing. The cost of Sugar to these is 
considerably less in money, while immeasurably less in 
labor, than it would or could have been had the 
tropical Cane been still regarded as the only plant 
available for the production of Sugar. 

But the West Indies, wherein the Cane flourishes 
luxuriantly and renews itself perennially, lie at our 
doors. They look to us for most of their daily bread, 
and for many other necessaries of life ; while several, 
if not all of them, are manifestly destined, in the 
natural progress of events, to invoke the protection 
of our flag. I do not, therefore, feel confident that 
Beet Sugar now promises to become an important 
staple destined to take a high rank among the pro- 



EOOTS TUTiNIPS BEETS — CAREOTS. 181 

ducts of our national industry. Witli cheap labor, I 
believe it might to-day be manufactured with profit in 
the rich, deep valleys of California, and perhaps in 
those of Utah and Colorado as well. On the whole, 
however, I cannot deem the prospect encouraging for 
the American promoters of the manufacture of Beet 
Sugar. 

But when we shall have deepened essentially the 
soil of our arable acres, fertilized it abundantly, and 
cured it by faithful cultivation of its vicious addic- 
tion to weed-growing, I believe we shall devote mil- 
lions of those acres to the growth of Beets for cattle- 
food, and, having learned how to harvest as weU as 
till them mainly by machinery, with little help from 
hand labor, we shall produce them with eminent 
profit and satisfaction to the grower. On soil fully 
two feet deep, thoroughly underdrained and amply 
fertilized, I believe we shall- often produce one thous- 
and bushels of Beets to the acre ; and so much accept- 
able and valuable food for cattle can hardly be ob- 
tained from an acre in any other form. 

So with regard to Carrots. I have never achieved 
eminent success in growing these, nor Beets ; mainly 
because the soil on which I attempted to grow them 
was not adapted to, or rather not yet in condition for, 
such culture. But, should I live a few years longer, 
until my reclaimed swamp shall have become thor- 
oughly sweetened and civilized, I mean to grow on 
some part thereof 1,000 bushels of Carrots per acre, 



182 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

and a still larger product of Beets ; and the Carrot, 
in my judgment, ought now to be extensively grown 
in the South and West, as well as in this section, for 
feeding to horses. I hold that 60 bushels of Carrots 
and 50 of Oats, fed in alternate meals, are of at least 
equal value as horse-feed with 100 bushels of Oats 
alone, while more easily grown in tliis climate. The 
Oat-crop makes heavy drafts upon the soil, while 
our hot Summers are not congenial to its thrift or 
perfection. Since we must grow Oats, we must be 
content to import new seed every 10 or 15 years from 
Scotland, l!^orway, and other countries which have 
cooler, moister Summers than our own ; for the Oat 
wiU inevitably degenerate under such suns as blazed 
through the latter half of our recent June. Believ- 
ing that the Carrot may profitably replace at least 
half the Oats now grown in this country, I look for- 
ward with confidence to its more and more extensive 
cultivation. 

The advantage of feeding Eoots to stock is not to 
be measured and bounded by their essential value. 
Beasts, like men, require a variety of food, and thrive 
best upon a regimen which involves a change of diet. 
Admit that Hay is their cheapest Winter food ; still, 
an occasional meal of something more succulent wiU 
prove beneficial, and this is best afi'orded by Eoots. 



XXXI. 



THE FAEMEe's calling. 



If any one fancies that he ever heard me flattering 
farmers as a class, or saying anything which implied 
that they were more virtuous, upright, unselfish, or 
deserving, than other people, I am sure he must have 
misunderstood or that he now misrecollects me. I 
do not even join in the cant, which speaks of farmers 
as supporting everybody else — of farming as the only 
indispensable vocation. You may say if you will that 
mankind could not subsist if there were no tillers of 
the soil ; but the same is true of house-builders, and 
of some other classes. A thoroughly good farmer is 
a useful, valuable citizen : so is a good merchant, 
doctor, or lawyer. It is not essential to the true 
nobility and genuine worth of the farmer's calling 
that any other should be assailed or disparaged. 

Still, if one of my three sons had been spared to 
attain manhood, I should have advised him to try to 
make himself a good farmer ; and this without any 
romantic or poetic notions of Agriculture as a pur- 
suit. I know well, from personal though youthful 

experience, that the farmer's life is one of labor, 

(183) 



184 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

anxiety, and care ; that hail, and flood, and hnrri- 
cane, and untimely frosts, over which he can exert 
no control, will often destroy in an hour the net 
results of months of his persistent, well-directed toil ; 
that disease will sometimes sweep away his animals, 
in spite of the most judicious treatment, the most 
thoughtful proyidence, on his part ; and that insects, 
blight, and rust, will often blast his well-grounded 
hopes of a generous harvest, when they seem on the 
very point of realization^ I know that he is neces- 
sarily exposed, more than most other men, to the ca- 
prices and inclemencies of weather and climate ; and 
that, if he begins responsible life without other means 
than those he finds in his own clear head and strong 
arms, with those of his helpmeet, he must expect to 
struggle through years of poverty, frugality, and re- 
solute, persistent, industry, before he can reasonably 
hope to attain a position of independence, comfort, 
and comparative leisure. I know that much of his 
work is rugged, and some of it absolutely repulsive ; 
I know that he will seem, even with unbroken good 
fortune, to be making money much more slowly than 
his neighbor, the merchant, the broker, or eloquent 
lawyer, who fills the general eye while he prospers, 
and, when he fails, sinks out of sight and is soon for- 
gotten ; and yet, I should have advised my sons to 
choose farming as their vocation, for these among 
other reasons : 

I. There is no other business in which success is so 
nearly certain as in this. Of one hundred men who 



THE faemer's calling. 185 

embark in trade, a careful observer reports that 
ninety-live fail; and, wliile I think this proportion 
too large, I am sure that a large majority do, and 
must fail, because competition is so eager and traffic 
so enormously overdone. If ten men endeavor to 
support their families by merchandise in a township 
which affords adequate business for but three, it is 
certain that a majority must fail, no matter how 
judicious their management or how frugal their liv- 
ing. But you may double tiie number of farmers in 
any agricultural county I ever traversed, v/ithout 
necessarily dooming one to failure, or even abridging 
his gains. If half the traders and professional men in 
this country were to betake themselves to farming to- 
morrow, they would not render that pursuit one 
whit less profitable, w^hile they would largely increase 
the comfort and wealth of the entire community ; 
and, while a good merchant, lawyer, or doctor, may 
be starved out of any township, simply because the 
work he could do well is already confided to others, I 
never yet heard of a temperate, industrious, intelli- 
gent, frugal, and energetic farmer who failed to make 
a living, or who, unless prostrated by disease or dis- 
abled by casualty, was precluded from securing a 
modest independence before age and decrepitude di- 
vested him of the ability to labor. 

II. I regard farming as that vocation which con- 
duces most directly and palpably to a reverence for 
Honesty and Truth. The young lawyer is often con- 
strained, or at least tempted, by his necessities, to do 



186 WHAT I ENOW OF FAEMING. 

the dirty professional work of a rascal intent on 
cheating his neighbor out of his righteous dues. 
The young doctor may be likewise incited to resort 
to a quackery he despises in order to secure instant 
bread; the unknown author is often impelled to 
write what will sell rather than what the public ought 
to buy ; but the young farmer, acting as a farmer, 
must realize that his success depends upon his abso- 
lute verity and integrity. He deals directly with 
Nature, which never was and never will be cheated. 
He has no temptation to sow beach sand for plaster, 
dock-seed for clover, or stoop to any trick or juggle 
whatever. '' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he 
also reap," while true, in the long run, of all men, is 
instantly and palpably true as to him. "When he, 
having grow^n his crop, shall attempt to sell it — in 
other words, when he ceases to be a farmer and be- 
comes a trader — he may possibly be tempted into 
one of the many devious ways of rascality ; but, so 
long as he is acting simply as a farmer, he can hardly 
be lured from the broad, straight highway of integrity 
and righteousness. 

III. The farmer's calling seems to me that most 
conducive to thorough manliness of character. 'No- 
body expects him to cringe, or smirk, or curry favor, 
in order to sell his produce. 'No merchant refuses to 
buy it because his politics are detested or his reli- 
gious opinions heterodox. He may be a Mormon, a 
Kebel, a Millerite, or a Communist, yet his Grain or 
his Pork will sell for exactly what it is worth — not a 



THE farmer's calling. 187 

fraction less or more than the price commanded by 
the kindred product of like quality and intrinsic 
value of his neighbor, whose opinions on all points 
are faultlessly orthodox and popular. On the other 
hand, the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, espe- 
cially if young and still struggling dubiously for a 
position, are continually tempted to sacrifice or sup- 
press their profoundest convictions in deference to 
the vehement and often irrational prepossessions of 
the community, whose favor is to them the breath of 
life. " She will find that tTiat won't go down here," 
was the comment of an old woman on a Mississippi 
steamboat, when told that the plain, deaf stranger, 
who seemed the focus of general interest, was Miss 
Martin eau, the celebrated Unitarian ; and in so say- 
ing she gave expression to a feeling which pervades 
and governs many if not most communities. I doubt 
whether the social intolerance of adverse opinions is 
more vehement anywhere else than throughout the 
larger portion of our own country. I have repeatedly 
been stung by the receipt of letters gravely inform- 
ing me that nay course and views on a current topic 
were adverse to public opinion : the writers evidently 
assuming, as a matter of course, that I was a mere 
jumping-jack, who only needed to know what other 
people thought to insure my instant and abject con- 
formity to their prejudices. Yery often, in other 
days, I was favored with letters from indignant sub- 
scribers, who, dissenting from my views on some 
question, took this method of informing me that they 



188 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

sliould no longer take my journal — a superfluous 
trouble, which coulA only have meant dictation or 
insult, since they had only to refrain from lenewing 
their subscriptions, and their Tribune would stop 
coming, whenever they should have received what 
we owed them ; and it would in no case stop till 
then. That a journalist was in any sense a public 
teacher — that he necessarily had convictions, and was 
not likely to suppress them because they were not 
shared by others — in short, that liis calling was other 
and higher than that of a waiter at a restaurant, ex- 
pected to furnish whatever was called for, so long as 
the pay was forthcoming — these ex-subscribers had 
evidently not for one moment suspected. That such 
persons have little or no capacity to insult, is very 
true ; and yet, a man is somewhat degraded in his 
own regard by learning that his vocation is held in 
such low esteem by others. The true farmer is 
proudly aware that it is quite otherwise with his pur- 
suit — that no one expects him to swallow any creed, 
support any party, or defer to any prejudice, as a 
condition precedent to the sale of his products. 
Hence, I feel that it is easier and more natural in his 
pursuit than in any other for a man to work for a 
living, and aspire to success and consideration, with- 
out sacrificing self-respect, compromising integrity, 
or ceasing to be essentially and thoroughly a gentle- 
man. 



XXXII. 

A LESSON OF TO-DAY, 

The current season .is quite commonly character- 
ized as the coldest, the hottest, the wettest, or the 
dryest, that was ever known. Men undoubtingly 
assert that they never knew a Summer so hot, or a 
Winter so cold, when in fact several such have oc- 
curred within the cycle of their experience. Hardly 
anything else is so easily or so speedily forgotten as 
extremes of temperature or inclemencies of weather, 
after they have passed away. I presume there have 
been six to ten Summers, since the beginning of this 
century, as hot and as dry as that of 1870 ; yet the 
fact remains that, throughout the Eastern section 
of our country, to say nothing of the rest, the heat 
and drouth of the current Summer have been 
quite remarkable. For two months past, counting 
from the 10th of June, nearly every day has been 
a hot one, with blazing sunshine throughout, rarely 
interrupted and slightly modified by infrequent 
and inadequate showers ; and, as a general result 
of this tropical fervor, the earth is parched and 

baked from ten to forty inches from the surface ; 

(189) 



190 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

streams and ponds are dried up or shrunk to tlieir 
lowest dimensions; forests are often ravaged and 
desolated bj fires ; our pastures are dry and brown ; 
while crops of Hay, Oats, Potatoes, Buckwheat, etc., 
either have proved, or certainly must prove, a disap- 
pointment to the hopes of the growers. I estimate 
the average product for 1870 of the farms of ISTew- 
England, eastern ]^ew-York and ]^ew-Jersey, as not 
more than two-thirds of a full harvest ; while the 
earth remains at this moment so baked and incrusted 
that several days' rain is needed to fit it for Fall 
plowing and the sowing of Winter grain. 

Such seasons must not be regarded as extraordin- 
ary. The Summer of 1854 was nearly or quite as dry 
as this ; and I presume one or two such have inter- 
vened since that time. The heat of 1870 is remarka- 
ble for its persistence rather than its intensity. 
Every Summer has its heated term ; that of 1870 
has been longer in this region than any before it 
that I can remember, though doubtless the recollec- 
tion of others might supply its perfect counterpart. 
[N'early every Snimmer has its drouth ; the present is 
peculiar rather for its early commencement than 
its extreme duration. As our country is more and 
more denuded of its primitive forests, drouths longer 
and severer even than this may. naturally be expect- 
ed. What our farmers have to do is, to prepare for 
and provide against them. 

Such seasons are disastrous to those only who farm 
as if none such were to be expected. Those who 



A LESSON OF TO-DAY. 191 

plow deeply, fertilize boimtifullj, and cultivate 
thoroughly, need not fear them, as fields of Hay and 
Oats already harvested, and of Corn and Potatoes 
now hastening to maturity in almost every township 
of the suffering region, abundantly attest. I doubt 
that more luxuriant crops of Corn, Tobacco, or 
Onions, were ever grown on the bottom-lands of the 
Connecticut Yalley than may be seen there to-day, 
with failures all about them, and under drouth so 
fierce that Blackberries and Whortleberries are 
withered when half grown ; even the bushes in some 
cases perishing for lack of moisture. 

My last trip took me along the banks of the upper 
Hudson, through the rugged county of Warren, K. Y. 
The narrow, irregular intervale of this mountain 
stream appear to have been cultivated for the last 
fifty or sixty years by a hardy race, who look mainly 
to the timber of the wild region north of them for a 
subsistence. In such a district, whatever ministers 
to the sustenance of man or beast bears a high price ; 
and Corn, Rye, Oats, Buckwheat, Apples and Grass, 
are grown wherever the soil is not too rugged or too 
sterile for culture. I presume half a crop of Hay has 
been secured throughout this valley, with perhaps a 
full crop of Rye where Rye was sown ; but of Oats the 
yield will be considerably less than that, while of 
Corn and Buckwheat it will range from ten bushels 
per acre down to nothing. When I, last Summer, 
passed through spacious field after field of Corn in 
Virginia that would not mature a single ear, I spoke 



192 WHAT I KNOW OF, FARMING. 

of it as something unknown at the Korth ; but there 
are fields planted to Corn, in the upper valley of the 
Hudson, that will not produce a single sound ear, 
nor one bushel even of the shortest and poorest 
" nubbins ;" and alongside of these are acres of Buck- 
wheat, blossoming at an average hight of four inches, 
and not likely to get two inches higher. 

ITow, if this land were so poor or so rocky that 
good crops could not be extracted from it, far be it 
from me to disparage the agriculture whereof the 
results are so meagre ; but I am speaking of a river 
intervale of considerable natural fertility, from 
which deep and thorough cultivation would insure 
ample harvests, subject only to the contingency of 
early frosts in Autumn. Were these lands fertilized 
and cultivated as they might be, and as mine are, 
they would yield 30 bushels of Rye or 60 of Indian 
Corn per acre, and would richly repay the husband- 
man's outlay and efibrts. Now, I venture to say 
that all the grain I saw growing in the valley of the 
Hudson through Warren County will not return the 
farmer 75 cents for each day's labor expended there- 
on, allowing nothing for the use of the land. 

"But how shall we obtain fertilizers ?" I am often 
asked. " We are poor ; we can afford to keep but few 
cattle ; Guano, Phosphate, Bones, Lime, etc., are be- 
yond our means. Even if we could pay for them, the 
cost of transportation to our out-of-the-way nooks would 
be heavy. We cannot deal with our lands so boun- 
tifully as you do, but must be content to do as we can." 



A LESSON OF TO-DAY. 193 

To all which I make answer : l^o man ever lacked 
fertilizers who kept his eyes wide open and devoted 
two months of each Fall and Winter to collecting 
and preparing them. Wherever sw^amp muck may 
be had, wherever bogs exist or flags or rushes grow, 
there are materials which, carted into the barn-yard 
in Antnmn or Winter, may be drawn out fertilizers in 
season for Corn -planting next Spring. Wherever a 
pond or slough dries up in Summer gr Autum^n, there 
is material that may be profitably transformed into 
next year's grass or grain. In the absence of all these 
— and they are seldom very far from one who knows 
how to look for them — rank weeds of all sorts, if cut 
while green and tender, or forest leaves, gathered in 
the Fall, used for litter in the stable, and thence 
thrown into the yard, will serve an excellent purpose. 
!Nay, more : I am confident that the farmer who 
lacks these, but has access to a bed or bank of simple 
clay, may cart 200 loads of it in JSTovember into an 
ordinary farm-yard, have it trampled into and mixed 
with his manure in the Winter, and draw it out iu 
the Spring, excellently fitted to enrich his sandy or 
gravelly land, and insure him, in connection with 
deep and thorough culture, a generous yield of Corn, 
even in such a season as the present. Dr. George B. 
Loring, the most successful farmer in Massachusetts, 
uses naked beach sand in abundance as litter for his 
80 cows, mixes it with his manure throughout the 
Winter, and draws out the compound to fertilize his 
clay meadows in the Spring, with most satisfactory 

9 



194 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

results. Depend on it, no man need lack fertilizers 
who begins in season and is willing to work for them. 

And yet once more : 

From the hills which inclose this valley of the 
upper Hudson (and from ever so many other valleys 
as well), brooks and rivulets, copious in Spring, when 
their waters are surcharged and discolored by the 
richest juices of the uplands, pour down in frequent 
cascades and dance across the intervale to be lost in 
the river. There is scarcely an acre of that intervale 
which might not be irrigated from these streams at 
a very moderate outlay of work at the season when 
work is least pressing : the water thus held back by 
dams being allowed to flow thence gently and equably 
across the intervale, conveying not moisture only, but 
fertility also, to every plant growing thereon. I am 
confident that I passed many places on the upper 
Hudson, as well as on the Connecticut and Ammo- 
noosuc, where 100 faithful days' work providing for 
irrigation would have given 100 bushels of grain, or 
10 tuns of hay additional this year, and as much per 
annum henceforth, at a cost of not more than two 
days' work in each year hereafter. 

Farmers, but above all farmers' sons, think of these 
things. 



XXXIII. 

INTELLECT IN AGEICULTI3UE. 

If a man whose capital consists of the clothes on 
his back, $5 in his pocket, and an ax over his right 
shoulder, undertakes to hew for himself a farm ont 
of the primitive forest, he must of course devote 
some years to rugged manual labor, or he will fail 
of success. It is indeed possible that he should find 
others, even on the rude outposts of civilization, who 
will hire them to teach school, or serve as county 
clerk, or survey lands, or do something else of Hke 
nature : thus enabling him to do his chopping trees, 
and rolling logs, and breaking up his stumpy acres, 
by proxy ; but the fair presumption is that he will 
have to chop and log, and burn off and fence, and 
break up, by the use of his own proper muscle ; and 
he must be energetic and frugal, as well as fortunate, 
if he gets a comfortable house over his head, with 
forty arable acres about him, at the end of fifteen 
years' hard work. If he has brains, and has been 
well educated, he may possibly shorten this ordeal to 
ten years; but, should he begin by fancying hard 
w^ork beneath him, or his abilities too great to be 

(i95> 



196 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMICTG. 

squandered in bushwhacking, he is very likely to 
come out at the little end of the horn, and, strag- 
gling back to some populous settlement, more needy 
and seedy than when he set forth to wrest a farm 
from the wilderness, declare the pioneer's Hfe one of 
such dreary, hopeless privation that no one who can 
read or cypher ought ever to attempt it. 

A poor man, who undertakes to live by his wits on 
a farm that he has bought on credit, is not likely to 
achieve a brilliant success; but the farmer whose 
hand and brain work in concert will never find nor 
fancy his intellect or his education too good for his 
calling. He may very often discover that he wasted 
months of his school-days on what was ill-adapted 
to his needs, and of little use in fighting the actual 
battle of life; but he will at the same time have 
ample reason to lament the meagerness and the 
deficiency of his knowledge. 

I hold our average Common Schools defective, in 
that they fail to teach Geology and Chemistry, which 
in my view are the natural bases of a sound, practical 
knowledge of things — knowledge which the farmer, 
of all men, can least afford to miss. However it 
may be with others, he vitally needs to understand 
the character and constitution of the soil he must 
cultivate, the elements of which it is composed, and 
the laws which govern their relations to each other. 
Instruct him in the higher mathematics if you will, 
in logic, in meteorology, in ever so many languages ; 
but not till he shall have been thoroughly grounded 



mXELLECT IN AGEICULTUEE. 19T 

in the sciences wliicli unlock for him the arcana of 
ITatnre ; for these are intimately related to all he 
mnst do, and devise, and direct, throughout the whole 
course of his active career. Whatever he may learn 
or dispense with, a knowledge of these sciences is 
among the most urgent of his life-long needs. 

Hence, I would suggest that a simple, lucid, lively, 
accurate digest of the leading principles and facts in 
Geology and Chemistry, and their apphcation to the 
practical management of a farm, ought to constitute 
the Header of the highest class in every Common 
School, especially in rural districts. Leave out details 
and recipes, with directions when to plant or sow, 
etc. ; for these must vary with climates, circumstances, 
and the progress of knowledge ; but let the body and 
bones, so to speak, of a primary agricultural educa- 
tion be taught in every school, in such terms and 
with such clearness as to commend them to the un- 
derstanding of every pupil. I never yet visited a 
school in which something was not taught which 
might be omitted or postponed in favor of this. 

Out of school and after school, let the young farmer 
delight in the literature illustrative of his calling — I 
mean the very best of it. Let him have few agricul- 
tural books ; but let these treat of principles and laws 
rather than of methods and applications. Let him 
learn from these how to ascertain by experiment what 
are the actual and pressing needs of his soil, and he 
will readily determine by reflection and inquiry how 
those needs may be most readily and cheaply satisfied. 



198 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMmG. 

All the books in the world never of themselves 
made one good farmer ; but, on the other hand, no 
man in this age can be a thoroughly good farmer 
without the knowledge which is more easily and 
rapidly acquired from books than otherwise. Books 
are no substitute for open-eyed observation and prac- 
tical experience ; but they enable one familiar with 
their contents to observe with an accuracy, and ex- 
periment with an intelligence, that are unattainable 
without them. The very farmer who tells you that 
he never opened a book which treats of Agriculture, 
and never wants to see one, will ask his neighbor 
how to grow or cure tobacco, or hops, or sorgho, or 
any crop with which he is yet unacquainted, when 
the chances are a hundred to one that this particular 
neighbor cannot advise him so well as the volume 
which embodies the experience of a thousand culti- 
vators of this very plant instead of barely one. A 
good book treating practically of Agriculture, or of 
some department therein, is simply a compendium 
of the experience of past ages combined with such 
knowledge as the present generation have been en- 
abled to add thereto. It may be faulty or defective 
on some points ; it is not to be blindly confided in, 
nor slavishly followed — it is to be mastered, discussed, 
criticised, and followed so far as its teachings coincide 
with the dictates of science, experience, and common 
sense. Its true office is suggestion ; the good farmer 
will lean upon and trust it as an oracle only where 
his own proper knowledge proves entirely deficient. 



INTELLECT IN AGRICULTURE. 199 

By-aTid-bj, it will be generally realized that few 
men live or have lived who cannot find scope and 
profitable employment for all their intellect on a two- 
hundred-acre farm. And then the farmer will select 
the brightest of his sons to follow him in the manage- 
ment and cultivation of the paternal acres, leaving 
those of inferior ability to seek fortune in pursuits 
for which a limited and special capacity will serve, if 
not sufiice. And then we shall have an Amculture 
worthy of our country and the age. 

Meantime, let us make the most of what we have, 
by difi'using, studying, discussing, criticizing, Liebig's 
Agricultural Chemistry, Dana's Muck Manual, tar- 
ing's Elements, and the books that each treat more 
especially of some department of the farmer's art, 
and so making ourselves familiar, first, with the 
principles, then with the methods, of scientific, effi- 
cient, successful husbandry. Let us, who love it, 
treat Agriculture as the elevated, ennobling pursuit 
it might and should be, and thus exalt it in the esti- 
mation of the entire community. 

We may, at all events, be sure of this : Just so 
fast and so far as farming is rendered an intellectual 
pursuit, it will attract and retain the strongest minds, 
the best abilities, of the human race. It has been 
widely shunned and escaped from, mainly because it 
has seemed a calling in which only inferior capacities 
were required or would be rewarded. Let this error 
give place to the truth, and Agriculture will win vo- 
taries from among the brightest intellects of the race. 



XXXIY. 

SHEEP AND WOOL-GEOWING. 

OuES is eminently an agricultural country. We 
produce most of our Food, and export much more 
than we import of both Grain and Meat. Of Cotton, 
we grow some Three Millions of bales annually, 
whereof we export fully two-thirds. But of this we 
reimport a portion in the shape of Fabrics and of 
Thread; and yet, while we are largely clothed in 
Woolens, and extensive sections of our country are 
admirably adapted to the rearing of Sheep and the 
production of Wool, we not only import a consider- 
able share of the Woolens in which we are clad, but 
we also import a considerable proportion of the Wool 
wherefrom we manufacture the Woolens fabricated 
on our own soil. In other words : while we are a 
nation of farmers and herdsmen, we fail to grow so 
much Wool as is needed to shield us against the 
caprices and inclemencies of our diverse but generally 
fitful climates. 

There is a seeming excuse for this in the fact that 
extensive regions in South America and Austraha 
are devoted to Sheep-growing where animals are 
(200^ 



SHEEP AND WOOL-GEOWING. 201 

neither housed nor herded, and where they are ex- 
clusively fed, at all seasons, on those native grasses 
which are the spontaneous products of the soil. I 
presume Wool is in those regions produced cheaper 
than it can permanently be on any considerable area 
of our own soil ; and yet I believe that the United 
States should, and profitably might, grow as much 
Wool as is needed for their own large annual con- 
sumption. Here are my reasons: 

I. When the predominant interest of British Man- 
ufactures constrained the entire repeal of the duties 
on imported Wool, whereby Sheep-growing had pre- 
viously been protected, the farmers apprehended that 
they must abandon that department of their industry ; 
but the event proved this calculation a mistake. They 
grow more Sheep and at better profit to-day than they 
did when their Wool brought a higher price under 
the influence of Protective duties, because the largely 
increased price of their Mutton more than makes up 
to them their loss by the reduced prices of their Wool. 
So, while I do not expect that American Wool will 
ever again command such high prices as it has done 
at some periods in the past, I am confident that the 
general appreciation in the prices of Meat, which has 
occurred within the last ten or fifteen years, and 
which seems likely to be enduring, will render Sheep- 
growing more profitable in the future than it has 
been in the past. At all events, while om* farmers 
are generally obliged to sell their Grain and Meat at 
prices somewhat below the range of the British mar- 



202 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

kets, it is hardly conceivable that they should not 
afford to gi'ow Wool, for which they receive higher 
average prices than the British farmers do, who feed 
their Slieep on the produce of lands worth from $300 
to $500 (gold) per acre. 

II. Interest being relatively high in this country, 
and Capital with most farmers deficient, it is a serious 
objection to cattle-growing that the farmer must wait 
three or four years before receiving a return for his 
outlay. If he begins poor, with but a few cows and 
a team, he naturally wants to rear and keep all his 
calves for several years in order to adequately stock 
his farm, so that little or no income is meantime 
realized from his herd ; whereas a flock of Sheep 
yields a fleece per head each year, though not even a 
lamb is sold, while its increase in numbers is far more 
rapid than that of a herd of cattle. 

III. Almost every farmer, at least in the old States, 
finds some part of his land infested with bushes and 
briers, which seem to flourish by cutting, if he finds 
time to cut them, and which the ruggedness of his 
soil precludes his exterminating by the plow. In 
every such case, Sheep are his natural allies — his un- 
paid police — his vigilant and thorough-going assist- 
ants. Give them an even start in Spring with the 
bushes and briers ; let their number be sufficient ; 
and they are very sure to come out ahead in the 
Fall. 

TV. Our fanners in the average are too much con- 
fined in Summer and Autumn to salt meats, and es- 



SHEEP AXD WOOL-GROWING. 203 

peciallj to Pork. However excellent in quality these 
may be, their exclusive use is neither healthful nor 
palatable. With a good flock of Sheep, the most se- 
cluded farmer may have fresh meat every week in 
haying and harvest-time if he chooses ; and he will 
find this better for his family, and more satisfactory 
to his workmen, than a diet wherefrom fresh meat is 
excluded. 

Y. ITow, I do not insist that every farmer should 
grow Sheep, for I know that many are so situated 
that they cannot. In stony regions, where walls are 
very g-enerally relied on for fences, I am aware that 
Sheep are with difficulty kept within bounds ; and 
this is a serious objection. In the neighborhood of 
cities and large villages, where Fresh Meat may be 
bought from day to day, one vahd reason for keep- 
ing them has no application ; yet I hold that twice 
as many of our farmers as now have flocks ought to 
have them, and would thereby increase their profits 
as well as the comfort of their families. 

The most serious obstacle to Sheep husbandry in 
this country is the abundance and depredations of 
dogs. Farmers by tens of thousands have sold ofi^, or 
killed ofi*, their fiocks, mainly because they could not 
otherwise protect themselves against their frequent 
decimation by prowling curs, which were not worth 
the powder required to shoot them. It seems to me 
that a farmer thus despoiled is perfectly justifiable in 
placing poisoned food where these cut-throats will be 
apt to find it while making their next raid on hia 



204: WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

Sheep. I should have no scruple in so doing, pro- 
vided I could guard effectuallj against the poisoning 
of any other than the culprits. 

In a well-settled, thrifty region, where ample 
barns are provided, I judge that the losses of Sheep 
by dogs may be reduced to a minimum by proper 
precautions. Elsewhere than in wild, new frontier 
settlements, every flock of Sheep should have a place 
of refuge beneath the hay-floor of a good barn, and 
be trained to spend every night there, as well as to 
seek this shelter against every pelting storm. Even 
if sent some distance to pasture, an unbarred lane 
should connect snch pasture with their fold ; and 
they should be driven home for a few nights, if 
necessary, until they had acquired the habit of com- 
ing home at nightfall ; and I am assured that Sheep 
thus lodged will very rarely be attacked by dogs or 
wolves. 

As yet, our farmers have not generally realized 
that enhancement of the value of Mutton, whereby 
their British rivals have profited so largely. Their 
fathers began to breed Sheep when a fleece sold for 
much more than a carcase, and when fineness and 
abundance of Wool were the main consideration. 
But such is no longer the fact, at least in the Eastern 
and Middle States. To-day, large and long-wooled 
Sheep of the Cotswold and similar breeds are grown 
with far greater profit in this section than the fine- 
wooled Merino and Saxony, except where choice 
specimens of the latter can be sold at high prices for 



SHEEP AND WOOL-GKOWING. 205 

removal to Texas and the Far West. The growing 
of these high-priced animals must necessarily be con- 
fined to few hands. The average farmer cannot ex- 
pect to sell bucks at $1,000, and even at $5,000, as 
some have been sold, or at least reported. He must 
calculate that his Sheep are to be sold, when sold at 
all, at prices ranging from $10 down to $5, if not 
lower, so that mechanics and merchants may buy and 
eat them without absolute ruin ; and .he must realize 
that 100 pounds of Mutton at 10 cents, with 6 pounds 
of Wool at 30 cents, amount to more than 60 pounds 
of Mutton at 8 cents, and 10 pounds of Wool at 60 
cents. Farmers who grow Sheep for Mutton in this 
vicinity, and manage to have lambs of good size for , 
sale in June or July, assure me that their profit on /' 
these is greater than on almost anything else j 
their farms will produce ; and they say what they j 
know. 

The satisfactory experience of this class may be 
repeated to-day in the neighborhood of any consider- 
able city in the Union. Sheep-growing is no experi- 
ment ; it is an assured and gratifying success with 
all who understand and are fitly placed for its prose- 
cution. Wool may never again be so high as we 
have known it, since the Far West and Texas can 
grow it very cheaply, while its transportation costs 
less than five per cent, of its value, where that of 
Grain would be Y5 per cent. ; but Mutton is a w^hole- 
some and generally acceptable meat, whereof the use 
and popularity are daily increasing ; so that its mar- 



206 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

ket value will doubtless be greater iu the future than 
it has been in the past. I would gladly incite the 
farmers of our country to comprehend this fact, and 
act so as to profit by it. 

But the new region opened to Sheep-growing by 
the pioneers of Colorado, and other Territories, is 
destined to play a great part in the satisfaction of our 
need of Wool. The elevated Plains and Yalleys 
which enfold and embrace the Kocky Mountains are 
exceedingly favorable to the ch^ap production of 
Wool. Their pure, dry, bracing atmosphere ; the 
rarity of their drenching storms ; the fact that their 
soil is seldom or never sodden with water ; and the 
excellence of their short, thin grasses, even in Winter, 
render them admirably adapted to the wants of the 
shepherd and his flocks. I do not believe in the wis- 
dom or humanity, while I admit the possibility, of 
keeping Sheep without cured fodder on the Plains or 
elsewhere ; on the contrary, I would have ample and 
effective shelter against cold and wet provided for 
every flock, with Hay, or Grain, or Roots, or some- 
what of each of them, for at least two months of each 
year ; but, even thus, I judge that fine Wool can be 
grown in Colorado or Wyoming far cheaper than in 
ISTew England or even Minnesota, and of better quality 
than in Texas or South America. And I am griev- 
ously mistaken if Sheep husbandry is not about to be 
developed on the Plains with a rapidity and success 
which have no American precedent. 



XXXY. 



AXOUNTS IN FAEI^nNG. 



Farmees, it is urged, sometimes fail ; and this is 
unfortunately true of them, as of all others. Some 
fail in integrity ; others in sobriety ; many in ca- 
pacity ; most in diligence ; but not a few in method 
or system. Quite a number fail because they under- 
take too much at the outset ; that is, they run into 
debt for more land than they have capital to stock 
or means to fertilize, and are forced into bankruptcy 
by the interest ever-accruing upon land which they 
are unable to cultivate. If they should get ahead a 
little by active exertion throughout the day, the in- 
terest would overtake and pass them during the en- 
suing night. 

Few of the unsuccessful realize the extent to which 
their ill fortune is fairly attributable to their own 
waste of time. Men not naturally lazy squander 
hours weekly in the village, or at the railroad station, 
without a suspicion that they are thus destroying 
their chances of success in life. To-day is given up 
to a monkey-show ; half of to-morrow is lost in at- 
tendance on an auction ; part of next day is spent at 

(207) 



208 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

a caucus or a jarj trial ; and so on until one-third of 
the year is virtually wasted. 

]^ow, the men who have achieved eminent success, 
within my observation, have all been rigid economists 
of time. They managed to transact their business at 
the county-seat while serving there as grand or petit 
jurors, or detained under subpoena as witnesses ; they 
never attended an auction unless they really needed 
something which was there to be sold, and then they 
began their day's work earlier and ended it later in 
order to redeem the time which they borrowed for 
the sale. I do not believe that any American farmer 
who could count up three hundred full days' work in 
every year between his twenty-first and his thirtieth 
ever yet failed, except as a result of speculation, or 
endorsing, or inordinate running into debt. 

I would, therefore, urge every farmer to keep a 
rigid account current of the disposal of his time, so 
as to be able to see at the year's end exactly how 
many days thereof he had given to productive labor ; 
how many to such abiding improvements as fencing 
and draining ; and how many to objects which neither 
increased his crop nor improved his farm. I am sure 
many would be amazed at the extent of this last 
category. 

If every youth who expects to live by farming 
would buy a cheap pocket-book or wallet which con- 
tains a diary wherein a I3age is allotted to each day 
of the year, and would, at the close of that day, or at 
least while its incidents were still fresh in his mind, 



ACCOUNTS IN fak:ming. 209 

set down under its proper head whatever incidents 
were most noteworthy — as, for instance, a soaking 
rain ; a light or heavy shower ; a slight or killing 
frost ; a fall of snow ; a hurricane ; a hail-storm ; a 
gale ; a decidedly hot or notably cold temperature ; 
the turning out of cattle to pasture or sheltering them 
against the severity of Winter; also the planting or 
sowing of each crop or field, and whether harm was 
done to it by frost in its infancy or when it ap- 
proached maturity — he would thus provide himself 
with annual volumes of fact which would prove in- 
structive and valuable throughout his maturer years. 

The good farmer will of course keep accounts with 
such of his neighbors as he sees fit to deal with ; and 
he ought to charge a lent or credit a borrowed plow, 
harrow, reaper, log-chain, or other implement, pre- 
cisely as though it were meal or meat of an equal 
value. I judge that borrowed implements, if regu- 
larly charged at cost, and credited at their actual 
value when returned, would generally come home 
sooner and in better condition. 

But the farmer, like every one else, should be most 
careful to keep debt and credit with himself and his 
farm. If a dollar is spent or lent, his books should 
show it ; and let items and sum total stare him in the 
face when he strikes a balance at the close of the 
year. K there has been no leakage either of dimes 
or of hours, he will seldom be poorer on the 31st of 
December than he was on the 1st of the preceding 
January. 



210 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

Most farmers fail to keep accounts with their 
several fields and crops ; yet what could be more in- 
structive than these ? Here are ten acres of Corn, 
with a yield of 20 to 40 bushels per acre — a like area 
and like yield of Oats ; a smaller or larger of Rye, 
Buckwheat, or Beans, as the case may be. If the 
produce is sold, most farmers know how much it 
brings ; but how many know how much it cost ? 
Say the Corn brings 75 cents per bushel, and the Oats 
50 cents : was either or both produced at a profit ? 
If so, at what profit? Here is a farmer who has 
grown from 100 to 300 bushels of Corn per annum 
for the last 20 years ; ought he not to know by this 
time what Corn costs him in the average, and whether 
it could or could not with profit give place to some- 
thing else ? Most farmers grow some crops at a 
profit, others at a loss ; ought they not to know, after 
an experience of five or ten years, what crops have 
put money into their pockets, and what have made 
them poorer for the growing ? 

Of course, there is complication and some degree 
of uncertainty in all such account-keeping ; for every 
one is aware that some crops take more from the soil 
than others, and so leave it in a worse condition for 
those that are to follow, and that some exact large 
reenforcements of fertilizers, whereof a part only is 
fairly chargea1)le to the first ensuing product, while a 
large share inures to the subsequent harvests. Each 
must judge for himself how much is to be credited 
for such improve' nent, and how much charged 



ACCOUNTS m FARMING. 211 

against other crops for deterioration. He, for ex- 
ample, whose meadows will cut from two to three 
*tuns per acre of good English Hay may generally sell 
that Hay for twice if not thrice the inniiediate cost 
of its production, and so seem to be realizing a large 
profit ; but, if he gives nothing to the soil in return 
for the heavy draft thus made upon it, his crop will 
dwindle year by year, until it will hardly pay for 
cutting ; and the diminution in value of his meadows 
will nearly or quite balance the seeming profit accru- 
ing from his Hay. But account-keeping in every 
business iLYolves essentially identical calculations; 
and the merchant who this year makes no net profit 
on liis goods, but doubles the number of his custom- 
ers and the extent of his trade, has thriven pre- 
cisely as has the farmer whose profit on his crops has 
all been invested in drains permeating his bogs, and 
in Lime, Plaster, and other fertilizers, applied to and 
permanently enriching his dryer fields. 

" To make each day a critic on the last," was the 
aspiration of a wise man, if not a great poet. So the 
farmer who will keep careful and candid accounts 
with himself, annually correcting his estimates by the 
light of experience, will soon learn what crops he 
may reasonably expect to grow at a profit, and to re- 
ject such as are likely to involve him in loss ; and he 
who, having done this, shall blend common sense 
with industry, will have no reason to complain there- 
after that there is no profit in farming, and no chance 
of achieving wealth by pursuing it. 



XXXYI. 



STONE ON A FAKM. 



This earth, geologists saj, was once an immense 
expanse of heated vapor, which, gradually cooling at 
its surface, as it whirled and sped through space, con- 
tracted and formed a crust, which we know as Rock 
or Stone. This crust has since been broken through, 
and tilted up into ranges of mountains and hills, by 
the action of internal fires, by the transmutation of 
solid bodies into more expansive gases ; and the frag- 
ments torn away from the sharper edges of upheaved 
masses of granite, quartz, or sandstone, having been 
frozen into icebergs floating, or soon to be so, have 
been carried all over the siu'face of our planet, and 
dropped upon the greater part, as those icebergs were 
ultimately resolved, by a milder temperature, into 
flowing water. When the seas were afterward re- 
duced nearly or quite to their present limits, and the 
icebergs restricted to the frigid zones and their vicin- 
ity, streams had to make their way down the sides of 
the mountains and hills to the subjacent valleys and 
plains, sweeping along not merely sand and gravel, 
but bowlders also, of every size and form, and some- 

(212) 



STONE ON A FARM. 213 

times great rocks as well, by the force of their im- 
petuous currents. And, as a very large, if not the 
larger portion of our earth's surface bears testimony 
to the existence and powerful action through ages, of 
larger and smaller water-courses, a wide and general 
diifasion of stones, not in place, but more or less trit- 
urated, smoothed, and , rounded, by the action of 
water, was among the inevitable results. 

These stones are sometimes a facility, but oftener 
an impediment, to efficiency in agriculture. When 
heated by fervid sunshine throughout the day, they 
retain a portion of that heat through a part of the 
succeeding night, thereby raising the temperature of 
the soil, and increasing the deposit of dew on the 
plants there growing. When generally broken so 
linely as to offer no impediment to cultivation, they 
not merely absorb heat by day, to be given off by 
night, but, by rendering the soil open and porous, 
secure a much more extensive diffusion of air through 
it than would otherwise be possible. Thus do slaty 
soils achieve and maintain a warmth unique in their 
respective latitudes, so as to ripen grapes further 
North, and at higher elevations, than would other- 
wise be possible. 

The great Prairies of the West, with a consider- 
able portion of the valleys and plains of the Atlantic 
slope, expose no rock at their surfaces, and httle be- 
neath them, until the soil has been traversed, and 
the vicinity of the underlying rock in place fairly at- 
tained. To farmers inured to the perpetual stone- 



214 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

picking of [N'ew-Englaiid, and other hillj regions, this 
is a most welcome change ; but when the pioneer 
comes to look about him for stone to wall his cellar 
and his well, to underpin his barn, and form the 
foundations of his dwelling, he realizes that the 
bowlders he had exulted in leaving behind him were 
not wholly and absolutely a nuisance ; glad as he was 
to be rid of them forever, he would like now to call 
some of them back again. 

Yet, the Eastern farmer of to-day has fewer uses 
for stone than his grandfather had. He does not 
want his farm cut up into two or three-acre patches, 
by broad-based, unsightly walls, which frost is apt to 
heave year after year into greater deformity and less 
efficiency ; nor does he care longer to use them in 
draining, since he must excavate and replace thrice as 
much earth in making a stone as in making a tile 
drain ; while the former affords shelter and impunity 
to rats, mice, and other mischievous, predatory ani- 
mals, whose burrowing therein tends constantly to 
stimulate its natural tendency to become choked with 
sand and earth. Of the stone drains, constructed 
through parts of my farm by foremen whose wills 
proved stronger than my own, but two remain in par- 
tial operation, and I shall rejoice when these shall 
have filled themselves up and been counted out ever- 
more. Happily, they were sunk so low that the sub- 
soil plow will never disturb them. 

Still, my confidence that nothing was made in vain 
is scarcely shaken by the prevalence and abundance 



STONE ON A FAKM. 215 

of stone on our Eastern farms. We may not have 
present use for them all ; but our grandsons will be 
wiser than we, and have uses for them which we 
hardly suspect. I reinsist that land which is very 
stony was mainly created with an eye to timber- 
growing, and that millions of acres of such ought 
forthwith to be planted .with Hickory, White Oak, 
Locust, Chestnut, White Pine, and other valuable 
forest-trees. Every acre of thoroughly dry land, 
lying near a railroad, in the Eastern or Middle 
States, may be made to pay a good interest on from 
$50 up to $100, provided there be soil enough above 
its rocks to afford a decent foothold for trees ; and 
how little will answer this pui'pose none can imagine 
who have not seen the experiment tried. Sow thickly, 
that you may begin to cut out poles six to ten feet 
long within three or four years, and keep cutting out 
(but never cutting off) thenceforward, until time 
shall be no more, and your rocky crests, steep hill-sides 
and ravines, will take rank with the most productive 
portions of your farm. 

In the edges of these woods, you may deposit the 
surplus stones of the adjacent cultivated fields, in full 
assurance that moth and rust will not corrupt nor 
thieves break through and steal, but that you and 
your sons and grandsons will find them there when- 
ever they shall be needed, as well as those you found 
there when you came into possession of the farm. 

I am further confident that we shall build more 
and more with rough, unshapen stone, as we grow 



216 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

older and wiser. In our harsh, capricious climate, 
walls of stone-concrete afford the cheapest and best 
protection alike against heat and frost, for our ani- 
mals certainly, and, I think, also for ourselves. Let 
the farmer begin his barn by making of stone, laid 
in thin mortar, a substantial basement story, let into 
a hillside, for his manure and his root-cellar ; let him 
build upon this a second story of like materials for 
the stalls of his cattle ; and now he may add a third 
story and roof of wood for his hay and grain, if he 
sees fit. His son or grandson will, probably, take 
this off, and replace it with concrete walls and a slate 
roof; or this may be postponed until the original 
wooden structure has rotted off; but I feel sure that, 
ultimately, the dwellings as well as barns of thrifty 
farmers, in stony districts, will mainly be built of 
rough stone, throAvn into a box and firmly cemented 
by a thin mortar composed of much sand and little 
xime ; and that thus at least ten thousand tuns of stone 
to each farm will be disposed of. It may be some- 
what later still before our barn-yards, fowl inclosures, 
gardens, pig-pens, etc., will be shut in by cemented 
walls ; but the other sort affords such ample and per- 
petual lurking-places for rats, minks, weasels, and 
all manner of destructive vermin, that they are cer- 
tain to go out of fashion before the close of the next 
century. 

As to blasting out Stone, too large or too finnly 
fixed to be otherwise handled, I would solve the 
problem by asking, " Do you mean to keep this lot 



STONE ON A FARM. 217 

in cultivation ?" If you do, clear it of stone from 
the surface upward, and for at least two feet down- 
w^ard, though they be as large as haycocks, and as 
fixed as the everlasting hills. Clear your field of 
every stone bigger than a goose-egg, that the Plow 
or the Mower may strike in doing its work, or give 
it up to timber, plant' it thoroughly, and leave its 
stones unmolested until you or your descendants shall 
have a paying use for them. 

A friend deeply engaged in lumbering gives me a 
hint, which I think some owners of stony farms will 
find useful. He is obliged to run his logs down shal- 
low, stony creeks, from the bottom of which large 
rocks often protrude, arresting the downward pro- 
gress of his lumber. When the beds of these creeks 
are nearly dry in Summer, he goes in, with two or 
three stout, strong assistants, armed with crowbars 
and levers, and rolls the stones to this side and that, 
so as to leave a clear passage for his logs. Occasion- 
ally, he is confronted by a big fellow, which defies 
his utmost force ; w^hen, instead of drilling and blast- 
ing, he gathers dead tree-tops, and other dry wood 
of no value, from the banks, and builds a hot fire on 
the top of each giant bowlder. When the fire has 
burned out, and the rock has cooled, he finds it soft- 
ened, and, as it were, rotten, on the top, often split, 
and every way so demorahzed that he can deal with 
it as though it were chalk or cheese. He estimates 
his saving by this process, as compared with drilling 
and blasting, as much more than fifty per cent. I 

lO 



218 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

trust farmers with whom wood is abundant, and big 
stones superabundant, will give this simple device a 
trial. Powder and drilling cost money, part of which 
may be saved by this expedient. 

I have built some stone walls — at first, not very 
well ; but for the last ten years my rule has been : 
Yery little fence on a farm, but that little of a kind 
that asks no forbearance of the wildest bull that ever 
wore a horn. The last wall I built cost me at least 
$5 per rod ; and it is worth the money. Beginning 
by plowing its bed and turning the two furrows to- 
gether, so as to raise the ground a foot, and make a 
shallow ditch on either side, I built a wall thereon 
which will outlast my younger child. An ordinary 
wall dividing a wood on the north from an open field 
of sunny, gravelly loam on the south, would have been 
partly thrown down and wholly twisted out of shape 
in a few years, by the thawing of the earth under its 
sunny side, while it remained firm as a rock on the 
north ; but the ground is always dry under my entire 
wall ; so nothing freezes there, and there is conse- 
quently nothing to thaw and let down my wall. I 
shall be sorely disappointed if that wall does not out- 
last my memory, and be known as a thorough barrier 
to roving cattle long after the name of its original 
owner shall have been forgotten. 



XXXYII. ^ 



FENCES AOT) FENCING. 



Though I have already indicated, incidentally, my 
decided objections to our prevalent system of Fencing, 
I deem the subject of such importance that I choose 
to discuss it directly. Excessive Fencing is peculiarly 
an American abuse, which urgently cries for reform. 

Solon Kobinson says the fence-tax is the heaviest 
of our farmer's taxes. I add, that it is the most need- 
less and indefensible. 

Highways we nmst have, and people must traverse 
them ; but this gives them no right to trample down 
or otherwise injure the crops growing on either side. 
In France, and other parts of Em-ope, you see grass 
and grain growing luxuriantly up to the very edge 
of the beaten tracks, with nothing like a fence be- 
tween them. Yet those crops are nowise injured or 
disturbed by wayfarers. Whoever chooses to impel 
animals along these roads must take care to have 
them completely under subjection, and must see that 
they do no harm to whatever grows by the way-side. 

In this country, cattle-driving, except on a small 
scale, and for short distances, has nearly been super- 

(219) 



220 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

eeded by railroads. The great droves formerly reach- 
ing the Atlantic seaboard on foot, from Ohio or further 
West, are now huddled into cars and hurried through 
in far less time, and with less waste of flesh ; but they 
reach us fevered, bruised, and every way unwhole- 
some. Every animal should be turned out to grass, 
after a railroad journey of more than twelve hours, 
and left there a full month before he is taken to the 
slaughter-pen. We must have many more deaths per 
annum in this city than if the animals on which we 
subsist were killed in a condition which rendered them 
fit for human food. 

Ultimately, our fresh Beef, Mutton and Pork, will 
come to us from the Prairies in refrigerating cars: 
each animal having been killed while in perfect health, 
unfevered and untortured by days of cramped, galled, 
and thirsty suffering, on the cars. This will leave 
their offal, including a large portion of their bones, to 
enrich the fields whence their sustenance was drawn 
and from which they should never be taken. The cost 
of transporting the meat, hides, and talloAV, in such 
cars, would be less than that of bringing through the 
animals on their legs ; while the danger of putrefac- 
tion might be utterly precluded. 

Bat to return to Fencing: 

Our growing plants must be preserved from ani 
mal ravage ; but it is most unjust to impose the cost 
of this protection on the growers. Whoever chooses 
to rear or buy animals must take care that they do 
not infest and despoil his neighbors. Whoever sees 



FENCES AND FENCING. 221 

fit to turn animals into the street, should send some 
one with them who will be sore to keep tliem out of 
mischief, which browsing young trees in a forest 
clearly is. 

If the inhabitants of a settlement or village sur- 
rounded by open prairie, see fit to pasture their cattle 
thereon, they should send them out each morning in 
the charge of a well-mounted herdsmen, whose duty 
should be summed up in keeping them from evil- 
doing by day and bringing them safelj^ back to their 
yard or yards at nightfall. 

Fencing bears with special severity on the pioneer 
class, who are least able to afibrd the outlay. The 
'' clearing" of the pioneer's first year in the wilderness, 
being enlarged by ax and fire, needs a new and far 
longer environment next year ; and so through sub- 
sequent years until clearing is at an end. Many a 
pioneer is thus impelled to devote a large share of 
his time to Fencing ; and yet his crops often come to 
grief through the depredations of his own or his 
!*ieighbor's breachy cattle. 

Fences produce nothing but unwelcome bushes, 
briers and weeds. So far as they may be necessary* 
they are a deplorable necessity. When constructed 
where they are not really needed, they evince costly 
folly. I think I could point out farms which would 
not sell to-day for the cost of rebuilding their present 
fences. 

We cannot make open drains or ditches serve for 
fences in this country, as they sometimes do in milder 



222 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMTN-Q. 

and more equable climates, because our severe frosts 
would heave and crumble their banks if nearly per- 
pendicular, sloping them at length in places so that 
animals might cross them at leisure. Nor have we, 
so far north as this city, had much success with hedges, 
for a like reason. There is scarcely a hedge-plant at 
once efficient in stopping animals and so hardy as to 
defy the severity, or rather the caprice, of our Winters. 
I scarcely know a hedge which is not either inefficient 
or too costly for the average farmer ; and then a hedge 
is a fixture ; whereas we often need to move or demol- 
ish our fences. 

Wire Fences are least obnoxious to this objection ; 
they are very easily removed ; but a careless teams- 
ter, a stupid animal, or a clumsy friend, easily makes 
a breach in one, which is not so easily repaired. Of 
the few Wire Fences within my knowledge, hardly 
one has remained entire and efficient after standing 
two or three years. 

Stone Walls, well built, on raised foundations of 
dry earth, are enduring and quite effective, but very 
costly. My best have cost me at least $5 per rod, 
though the raw material was abundant and accessi- 
ble. I doubt that any good wall is built, with labor at 
present prices, for less than $3 per rod. Perhaps I 
should account this costliness a merit, since it must 
impel farmers to study how to make few fences serve 
their turn. 

Rail Fences will be constructed only where timber 
is very abundant, of little value, and easily split, 



FENCES AND FENCING. 223 

Whenever the burning ot timber to be rid of it has 
ceased, there the making of rail fences must be near 
its end. 

Where fences must still be maintained, T apprehend 
that posts and boards are the cheapest material. 
Thongli Pine lumber^ grows dear, Hemlock still 
aboimds ; and the rapid destruction of trees for their 
bark to be used in tanning must give us cheap hem- 
lock boards throughout many ensuing years. Spruce, 
Tamarack, and other evergreens from our IN^orthern 
swamps, will come into play after Hemlock shall have 
been exhausted. 

As for posts, Eed Cedar is a general favorite ; and 
this tree seems to be rapidly multiplying hereabout. 
I judge that farmers who have it not, might wisely 
order it from a nursery and give it an experimental 
trial. It is hardy ; it is clean ; it makes but little 
shade ; and it seems to fear no insect whatever. It 
flourishes on rocky, thin soils ; and a grove of it is 
pleasant to the sight — at least, to mine. 

Locust is more widely known and esteemed ; but 
the borer has proved destructive to it on very many 
farms, though not on mine. I like it well, and mean 
to multiply it extensively by drilling the seed in rich 
garden soil and transplanting to rocky woodland 
when two vears old. Sowing the seed amons: rocks 
and bushes I have tried rather extensively, with poor 
success. If it germinates at all, the young tree is so 
tiny and feeble that bushes, weeds, and grass, overtop 
and smother it. 



I 



224 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

That a post set top-end down will last many years 
longer than if set as it grew, I do firmly believe, 
though I cannot attest it from personal observation. 
I understand the reason to be this : Trees absorb or 
suck up moisture from the earth; and the particles 
which compose them are so combined and adjusted 
as to facihlate this operation. Plant a post deeply 
and firmly in the ground, but-end downward, and it 
will continue to absorb moisture from the earth as it 
did when alive ; and the post, thus moistened to-day 
and dried by wind and sun to-morrow, is thereby 
subjected to more rapid disintegration and decay than 
when reversed. 

My general conclusion is, that the good farmer 
will have fewer and better Fences than his thriftless 
neighbor, and that he will study and plan to make 
fewer and fewer rods of fence serve his needs, taking 
care that all he retains shall be perfect and conclusive. 
Breechy cattle are a sad afiliction alike to their owner 
and his neighbor; and shaky, rotting, tumble-down 
fences, are justly responsible for their perverse edu- 
cation. Let us each resolve to take good care that 
his own cattle shall in no case afflict his neighbors, 
and we shall all need fewer fences henceforth and 
evermore. 



XXXYIII. 

AGEICTJLTUHAL EXHIBITIONS. 

I must Lave attended not less than fifty State or 
County Fairs for the exhibition (mainly) of Agricultu- 
ral Machines and Products. From all these, I should 
have learned something, and presume I did ; bnt I 
cannot now say what. Hence, I conclude that these 
Fairs are not What they might and should be. In 
other words, they should be improved. But how ? 

As the people compose much the largest and best 
part of these shows, the reform must begin with them. 
Two-thirds of them go to a Fair with no desire to 
learn therefrom — no belief that they can there be 
taught anything. Of course, not seeking, they do 
not find. If they could but realize that a Farmer's 
Fair might and should teach farmers somewhat that 
w^ould serve them in their vocation, a great point 
would be gained. But they go in quest of entertain- 
ment, and find this mainly in horse-racing. 

Of all human opportunities for instruction in humili- 
ty and self-depreciation, the average public speaker's is 
the best. He hurries to a place where he has been 
told that his presence and utterance are earnestly and 

10* (^^5) 



226 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

generally desired — ^perhaps to find that Ms invitation 
came from an insignificant and odious handful, who 
had some private ax to grind so repugnant to the 
great majority that they refuse to countenance the 
procedure, no matter how great the temptation. 
Even where there is no such feud, many, having 
satiated their curiosity by a long stare at him, walk 
whistling off, without waiting or wishing to hear him. 
But the speaker at a Fair must compete with a thou- 
sand counter-attractions, the least of them far more 
popular and winning than he can ho]3e to be. He is 
heard, so far as he is heard at all, in presence of and 
competition with all the bellowing bulls, braying 
jacks, and squealing stallions, in the county ; if he 
holds, nevertheless, a quarter of the crowd, he does 
well : but let two jockeys start a buggy-race around 
the convenient track, and the last auditor shuts his 
ears and runs off to enjoy the spectacle. Decidedly, 
I insist that a Fair-ground is poorly adapted to the 
diffusion of Agricultural knowledge — that the people 
present acquire very little information there, even 
when they get all they want. 

What is needed to render our annual Fairs useful 
and instructive far beyond precedent, I sum up as 
follows : 

I. Each farmer in the county or township should 
hold himself bound to make smne contribution there- 
to. If only a good hill of Corn, a peck of Potatoes, 
a bunch of Grapes, a Squash, a Melon, let him send 
that. If he can send all of these, so much the better. 



AGEICULTTTRAL EXHIBITIONS. 227 

There is very rarely a thrifty farmer who could not 
add to the attractions and merits of a Fair if he 
would try. If he could send a coop of superior Fowls, 
a likely Calf, or a first-rate Cow, better yet; but 
nine-tenths of our farmers regard a Fair as some- 
thing wherewith they' have nothing to do, except as 
spectators. When it is half over, they lounge into it 
with hands in their pockets, stare about for an hour, 
and go home protesting that they could beat nearly 
everything they saw there. Then why did they not 
try? How can we have good Fairs, if those who 
might make the best display of products save them- 
selves the trouble by not making any ? The average 
meagerness of our Fairs, so generally and justly com- 
plained of, is not the fault of those who sent what 
they had, but of those who, having better, were too 
lazy to send anything. Until this is radically chang- 
ed, and the blame fastened on those who might have 
contributed, but did not, our Fairs cannot help being 
generally meager and poor. 

II. It seems to me that there is great need of an 
interesting and faithful running commentary on the 
various articles exhibited. A competent person 
should be employed to give an hour's off-hand talk 
on the cattle and horses on hand, explaining the di- 
verse merits and faults of the several breeds there 
exhibited, and of the representatives of those breeds 
then present. If any are peculiarly adapted to the 
locality, let that fact be duly set forth, with the 
simple object of enabling the farmers to breed more 



228 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

intelligently, and more profitably. Then let the im- 
plements and machinery on exhibition be likewise 
explained and discussed, and let their superiority in 
whatever respect to those they have superseded or 
are designed to supersede be clearly pointed out. So, 
if there be any new Grain, Yegetable, or Fruit, on 
the tables, let it be made the subject of capable and 
thoroughly impartial discussion, before such only as 
choose to listen, and without putting the mere sight- 
seers to grave inconvenience. A lecture-room should 
always be attached to a Fair-ground, yet so secluded 
as to shut out the noise inseparable from a crowded 
exhibition. Here^ meetings should be held each even- 
ing, for general discussion ; every one being encour- 
aged to state concisely the impressions made on him, 
and the improvements suggested to him, by what he 
had seen. Do let us try to reflect and consider more 
at these gatherings, even though at the cost of seeing 
less. 

III. The well supported Agricultural Society of a 
rich and populous county must be able, or should 
be able, to give two or three liberal premiums for 
general proficiency in farming. If $100 could be 
profiered to the owner or manager of the best tilled 
farm in the county, $50 to the owner of the best or- 
chard, and $50 to the boy under 18 years of age who 
grew the best acre of Corn or Roots that year, I am 
confident that an impulse would thereby be given to 
agricultural progress. Our premiums are too numer- 
ous and too petty, because so few are willing to con- 



AGEICULTTJKAL EXHIBITIONS. 229 

tribute with no expectation of personal benefit or 
distinction. If we had but the right spirit aroused, 
we might dispense with most of our petty premiums, 
or replace them by medals of no great cost, and de- 
vote the money thus saved to higher and nobler ends. 
lY. Much of the speaking at Fairs seems to me in- 
sulting to the intelligence of the Farmers present, 
who are grossly flattered and eulogized, when they 
often need to be admonished and incited to mend 
tlieir ways. What use or sense can there be in a 
lawyer, doctor, broker, or editor, talking to a crowd 
of farmers as if they were the most favored of mor- 
tals and their life the noblest and happiest known 
to mankind ? Whatever it might be, and may yet 
become, we all know that the average farmer's life is 
not what it is thus represented : for, if it were, thous- 
ands would be rushing into it where barely hundreds 
left it : whereas we all see that the fact is quite other- 
wise. 'No good can result from such insincere and 
extravagant praises of a calling which so few freely 
choose, and so many gladly shun. Grant that the 
farmer's ought to be the most enviable and envied 
vocation, we know that in fact it is not ; and, agree- 
ing that it should be, the business in hand is to make 
it so. There must be obstacles to surmount, mistakes 
to set right, impediments to overcome, before farming 
can be in all respects the idolized pursuit which poets 
are so ready to proclaim it and orators so delight to 
represent it. Let us struggle to make it all that 
fancy has ever painted it ; but, so long as it is not, 



230 WHAT I KITOW OF FAEMTN-G. 

let US respect undeniable facts, and characterize it 
exactly as it is. 

Y. If our counties were tlioroughly canvassed by 
township committees, and each tiller of the soil asked 
to pledge himself in writing to exhibit something at 
the next County Fair, we should soon witness a de- 
cided improvement. Many would be incited to at- 
tend who now stay away ; while the very general 
complaint that there is nothing worth coming to see 
would be heard no more. As yet, a majority of 
farmers regard the Fair much as they do a circus or 
traveling menagerie, taking no interest in it except 
as it may afford them entertainment for the passing 
hour. We must change this essentially ; and the first 
step is to induce, by concerted solicitation, at least 
half the farmers in the county to pledge themselves 
each to exhibit something at the next annual Fair, 
or pay $5 toward increasing its premiums. 

YI. In short, we must all realize that the County 
or Township Fair is our Fair — not got up by others 
to invite our patronage or criticism, but something 
whereto it is incumbent on us to contribute, and 
which must be better or worse as we choose to make 
it. Realizing this, let us stop carping and give a 
shoulder to the wheel. 



XXXIX. 

SCIENCE m AGKICIJLTUEE. 

I AM not a scientific farmer ; it is not probable tbat 
I ever shall be. I have no such knowledge of Chem- 
istry and Geology as any man needs to make him a 
tborouglily good farmer. I am quite aware that men 
have raised good crops — a good many of them — who 
knew nothing of science, and did not consider any 
acquaintance with it conducive to efiiciency or suc- 
cess in their vocation. I have no doubt that men 
will continue to grow such crops, and to make money 
by agriculture, who hardly know what is meant by 
Chemistry or Geology ; and yet I feel sure that, as 
the years roll by, Science will more and more be re- 
cognized and accepted as the true, substantial base 
of efficient and profitable cultivation. Let me here 
give briefly the grounds of this conviction : 

Every plant is composed of elements whereof a 
very small portion is drawn from the soil, while the 
ampler residue, so long as the plant continues green 
and growing, is mainly water, though a variable and 
often considerable proportion is imbibed or absorbed 
from the atmosphere, which is understood to yield 

(23O 



232 \ WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

freely nearly all the elements required of it, provided 
the plants are otherwise in healthful and thrifty con- 
dition. Water is supplied from the sky, or from 
springs and streams ; and little more than the most 
ordinary capacity for observation is required to deter- 
mine when it is present in sufficient quantity, when 
in baleful excess. But who, unaided by Science, 
can decide whether the soil does or does not contain 
the elements requisite for the luxuriant growth and 
perfect development of Wlieat, or Fruit, or Grass, 
or Beets, or Apples ? A¥ho knows, save as he blindly 
infers from results, what mineral ingredients of 
this or that crop are deficient in a. given field, and 
what are present in excess ? And how shall any one 
be enhghtened and assured on the point, unless by 
the aid of Science ? 

I have bought and applied to my farm some two 
thousand bushels of Lime, and ten or a dozen tuns of 
Plaster ; and I infer, from what seemed to be results, 
that each of these minerals has been applied with 
profit ; but I do not Icnow it. The increased product 
which I have attributed to one or both of these ele- 
ments may have had a very diiferent origin and im- 
pulse. I only grope my way in darkness when I 
should clearly and surely see. 

An agricultural essayist in Maine has recently put 
forth a canon which, if well grounded, is of great 
value to farmers. He asserts that the growth of acid 
plants like Sorrel, Dock, etc., in a field, results from 
sourness in the soil, and that, where this exists. Lime 



SCIENCE IN AGEICIJLTUEE. 233 

— that is, the ordinary Carbonate of Lime — is urgently 
required; whereas the application of Plaster or G-yp- 
suni (Sulphate of Lii^e) to that field must be useless 
and wasteful. If such be the truth, a knowledge of 
it would be worth millions of dollars to our farmers. 
But I lack the scientific attainment needed to qualify 
me for passing judgment thereon. 

There is great diversity of. opinion among farmers 
with regard to the value of Swamp Muck. One has 
applied it to his land to good purpose ; so he holds 
Muck, if convenient, the cheapest and best fei^tilizer 
a farmer can add to his ordinary barn-yard manure ; 
another has applied corda upon cords of Muck, and 
says he has derived therefrom no benefit whatever. 
'Now, this contrariety of conclusion may result from 
imperfect judgment on one side or the other, or from 
the condition precedent of the diverse soils : one of 
them requiring what Muck could supply, while the 
other required something very different from that ; 
or it may be accounted for by the fact that the Muck 
applied in one case was of superior quality, and in 
the other good for nothing. Where Muck is com- 
posed almost wholly of the leaves of forest-trees 
which, through thousands of years, have been blown 
into a bog, or shallow pond, and there been gradually 
transformed into a fine, black dust or earth, I do not 
see how it can possibly be applied to an upland, es- 
pecially a sandy or gravelly soil, without conducing 
to the subsequent production of bounteous crops. 
True, it may be sour when fii'st drawn from the stag- 



234 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

naiit pool or bog in which it has lain so long, and 
may need to be mixed with Lime, or Salt, or Aslies, 
and subjected to the action of snn and frost, to ripen 
and sweeten it. But it seems to me impossible that 
such Muck should be applied to almost any reason- 
ably dry land, without improving its consistency and 
increasing its fertility. But all Muck is not the pro- 
duct of decayed forest-leaves ; and that which was 
formed of coarse, rank weeds and brakes, of rotten 
wood and flags, or skunk cabbage, may be of very in- 
ferior quality, so as hardly to repay the cost of dig- 
ging and applying it. Science will yet enable us to 
fix, at least approximately, the value of each deposit 
of Muck, and so give a preference to the best. 

The Analysis of Soils, whereof much was heard 
and whence much was hoped a few years since, seems 
to have fallen into utter discredit, so that every 
woold-be popular writer gives it a passing fling or 
kick. That any analysis yet made was and is worth- 
less, I can readily concede, without shaking in the least 
my conviction that soils will yet be analyzed, under 
the guidance of a truer, profounder Science, to the 
signal enlightenment and profit of their cultivators. 
Here is a retired merchant, banker, doctor, or lawyer, 
who has bought a spacious and naturally fertile but 
worn-out, run-down farm, on which he proposes to 
spend the remainder of his days. Of course, he must 
improve and enrich it ; but with what ? and how ? 
All the manure he finds, or, for the present, can make 
on it, will hardly put the first acre in high condition, 



SCIENCE IN AGEICULTUEE. 235 

while be grows old and is unwilling to wait forever. 
He is able and ready to buy fertilizers, and does buy 
right and left, without knowing whether his land 
needs Lime, or Phosphate, or Potash, or something 
very different from either. Say he purchases "$2,000 
worth of one or more of these fertilizers : it is highly 
probable that $1,500 might have served him better if 
invested in due proportion in just what his land most 
urgently needs; and I unflinchingly believe that we 
shall yet have an analysis of soils that will tell him 
just what fertilizers he ought to apply, and what 
quantity of each of them. 

Science has already taught us that every load of 
Hay or Grain drawn from a field abstracts therefrom 
a considerable quantity of certain minerals — say 
Potash, Lime, Soda, Magnesia, Chlorine, Silica, 
Phosphorus — and that the soil is thereby impover- 
ished until they be replaced, in some form or other. 
As no deposit in a bank was ever so large that con- 
tinual drafts would not ultimately exhaust it, so no 
soil was ever so rich that taking crop after crop from 
it annually, yet giving nothing back, would not ren- 
der it sterile or worthless. Sun and rain and wind 
will do their part in the work of renovation ; but all 
of them together cannot restore to the soil the mineral 
elements whereof each crop takes a portion, and which, 
being once completely exhausted, can only be replaced 
at a heavy cost. Science teaches us to foresee and 
prevent such exhaustion — in part, by a rotation of 
crops, and in part by a constant replacement of the 



236 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

minerals annually borne away : the subtraction being 
greater in proportion as the crop is more exacting and 
luxuriant. 

What I know of Science as applicable to Farming 
is little indeed ; but I know that there is such 
Science, and that each succeeding year enlarges^ im- 
proves, and perfects it. T know that I should thus 
far have farmed to far better purpose, if I had been 
master even of so much Science as already exists. 

Understand that I am not a teacher of this Science 
— I stand very low in the class of learners. I began 
to learn too late in life, and have been too incessantly 
harassed by a multiplicity of cares, to make any 
satisfactory progress. Any tolerably educated boy of 
fifteen may know far more of Agricultural Science by 
the time he has passed his eighteenth birth-day than 
I do. What I know in this respect can help him 
very little ; my faith that there is much to be known, 
and that he may master it if he will, is all that is of 
much importance. If I can convince a considerable 
number of our youth that they may surely acquire a 
competence by the time they shall have passed their 
fortieth year, without excessive labor or penurious 
frugality, by means of that knowledge of principles 
and laws subservient to Agriculture which their 
fathers could not, but which they easily may attain, 
I shall have rendered a substantial service alike to 
them and to our country. 



XL. 



FAEM IMPLEMENTS. 



A GOOD workman, it is said, does not quarrel with 
his tools — which, if true, I judge is due to the fact 
that he generally manages to have good ones. To 
work hard throughout a long day under a burning 
sun, is sufficiently trying, without rendering the labor 
doubly repugnant by the use of ill-contrived, imper- 
fect, inefficient implements. 

The half-century which nearly bounds my recollec- 
tion has witnessed great improvements in this respect. 
The Plow, mainly of wood, wherewith my father 
broke up his ston}^, hide-bound acres of New-Hamp- 
shire pebbles and gravel, in my early boyhood, would 
now be spurned if offered as a gift to the poorest and 
most thriftless farmer among ns ; and the Hoes which 
were allotted to us boys in those days, after the newer 
and better had been assigned to the men, would be 
rejected with disdain by the stupidest negro in Vir- 
ginia. Though there is still room for improvement, 
we use far better implements than our grandfathers 
did, with a corresponding increase in the efficiency 
of our labor ; but the cultivators of Spain, Portugal^ 

(237) 



238 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

and the greater part of Europe, still linger in the 
dark ages in this respect. Their plows are little bet- 
ter than the forked sticks which served their barbarian 
ancestors, and their implements generally are beneath 
contempt. With such implements, deep and thorough 
culture is simply impossible, unless by the use of the 
spade ; and he must be a hard worker who produces a 
peck of Wheat or half a bushel of Indian Corn per day 
by the exclusive use of this tool. The soil of France 
is so cut up and subdivided into little strips of two or 
three roods up to as many acres each — each strip 
forming the entire patrimony of a family — that agri- 
cultural advancement or efficiency is, with the great 
mass of French cultivators, out of the question. 
Hence, I judge that, outside of Great Britain and 
Australia, there is no country wherein an average 
year's work produces half so much grain as in our 
own, in spite of our slovenly tillage, our neglect and 
waste of fertilizers, and the frequent failures of our 
harvests. Belgium, Holland, and northern France, 
can teach us neatness and thoroughness of cultivation ; 
the British isles may fairly boast of larger and surer 
crops of Wheat, Oats, Potatoes, and Grass, than we 
are accustomed to secure ; but, in the selection of im- 
plements, and in the average efficiency of labor, our 
best farmers are ahead of them all. 

Bear with me, then, while I interpose a timid plea 
for our inventors and patentees of implements, whose 
solicitations that a trial, or at least an inspection, be 
accorded to their several contrivances, are too oftep 



FARM IMPLEMENTS. 239 

repelled with clmrlish rudeness. I realize that our 
thriving farmers are generally absorbed in their own 
plans and efforts, and that the agent or salesman who 
insists on an examination of his new harrow, or pitch- 
fork, or potato-digger, is often extravagant in his as- 
sumptions, and sometimes a bore. Still, when I re- 
collect how tedious and how back-breaking were the 
methods of mowing Grass and reaping Grain with the 
Scythe and Sickle, which held unchallenged sway in 
my early boyhood, I entreat the farmer who is peti- 
tioned to accord ten or fifteen minutes to the setting 
forth, by some errant stranger, of the merits of his 
new horse-hoe or tedder, to give the time, if he can ; 
and that without sour looks or a mien of stolid in- 
credulity. The Biblical monition that, in evincing a 
generous hospitality, we may sometimes entertain 
angels unawares, seems to me in point. A new im- 
plement may be defective and worthless, and yet con- 
tain the germ or suggest the form of a thoroughly 
good one. Give the inventor or his representative a 
courteous hearing if you can, even though this 
should constrain you to make up the time so 
lost after the day's work would otherwise have 
ended. 

I suspect that the average farmer of our complete- 
ly rural districts would be surprised, if not instructed, 
by a day's careful scrutiny of the contents of one of 
our great implement warehouses. So many and such 
various and ingenious devices for pulverizing the 
earth applying fertilizers to the soil, planting or sow- 



240 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

ing rapidly, eradicating weeds, economizing labor in 
harvesting, etc., will probably transcend not merely 
his experience, but his imagination ; and every one 
of these myriad implements is nseful in its place, 
though no single farmer can afford to buy all or half 
of them. It will yet, I think, be found necessary by 
the farmers of a school-district, if not of a township, 
to meet and agree among themselves that one will 
buy this implement, another that, and so on, until 
twenty or thirty such devices as a Stump or Rock- 
Puller, a Clod-Crusher, Thrashing-Machine, Fanning- 
Mill, etc., shall be owned in the neighborhood — each 
by a separate farmer, willing to live and let live — 
with an understanding that each shall be used in 
turn by him who needs it ; and so every one shall be 
nearly as well accommodated as though he owned them 
all.- ' 

For the number and variety of useful implements 
increase so rapidly, while their usefulness is so pal- 
pable, that, though it is difficult to farm efficiently 
without many if not most of thsm, it is impossible 
that the young farmer of moderate means should buy 
and keep them all. True, he might hire when he 
needed, if what he wanted were always at hand ; but 
this can only be assured by some such arrangement 
as I have suggested, wherein each undertakes to pro- 
vide and keep that which he will most need ; agree- 
ing to lend it whenever it can be spared to any other 
member of the combination, who undertakes to min- 
ister in like manner to his need in return. 



STEAM IN AGEICULTUEE. 24:1 

I tliink few will doubt that tlie inventions in aid 
of Agriculture during the last forty years will be far 
surpassed by those of the forty years just before us. 
The magnificent fortunes which, it is currently un- 
derstood, have rewarded the inventors of the more 
popular Mowers, Reapers, etc., of our day, are sure 
to stimulate alike the ingenuity and the avarice of 
clever men throughout the coming years, and to call 
into existence ten thousand patents, whereof a hun- 
dred will be valuable, and ten or twelve eminently 
.useful. Plowing land free from stumps and stones 
cannot long be the tedious, patience-trying process w^e 
have known it. The machinery w^hich will at once 
pulverize the soil to a depth of two feet, fertilize and 
seed it, not requiring it to be trampled by the hoofs 
of animals employed in subsoiling and harrowing, 
will soon be in general use, especially on the spacious, 
deep, inviting prairies of the Great West. — But I 
must defer what I have to say of Steam and its uses 
in Agriculture to another chapter. 



XLI. 



STEA]VI IN AGEICULTUEE. 



As yet, the great body of our farmers have been 
slow in availing themselves of the natural forces in 
operation around them. Yainly for them does the 
1 1 • 



242 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

wind blow across their fields and over their hill-tops. 
It neither thrashes nor grinds their grain ; it has 
ceased even to separate it from the chaff. The brook 
brawls and foams idly adown the precipice or hill- 
side : the farmer grinds his grain, churns his cream, 
and turns his grindstone, just as though falling water 
did not embody power. He draws £is Logs to one 
mill, and his Wheat, Corn, or Rye to another, and 
returns in due season with his boards or his meal ; 
but the lesson which the mill so plainly teaches re- 
mains by him unread. Where running or leaping 
water is not, there brisk breezes and fiercer gales are 
apt to be. But the average farmer ignores the 
mechanical use of stream and breeze alike, taxing]: 
his own muscle to achieve that which the blind forces 
of JSTature stand ready to do at his command. It may 
not, and I think it will not, be always thus. 

Steam, as a cheap source of practically limitless 
power, is hardly a century old ; yet it has already re- 
volutionized the mechanical and manufacturing in- 
dustry of Christendom. It weaves the far greater 
part of all the Textile Fabrics that clothe and shelter 
and beautify the human family. It fashions every 
bar and every rail of Iron or of Steel ; it impels the 
machinery of nearly every manufactory of wares or 
of implements ; and it is very rapidly supplanting 
wind in the propulsion of vessels on the high seas, 
as it has already done on rivers and on most inland 
waters. 

Water is, however, still employed as a power in 



STEAI^I m AGRICFLTrRE. 243 

certain cases, but mainly because its adaptation to 
this end has cost many thousands of dollars which its 
disuse would render worthless. 

I am quite within bounds in estimating that nine- 
tenths of all the material force employed by man in 
Manufactures, Mechanics, and I^avigation, is supplied 
by Steam, and that this disproportion will be increas- 
ed to ninety-nine hundredths before the close of this 
century. 

For Agriculture, Steam has done very much, in the 
transportation of crops and of fertilizers, but very 
little in the preparation or cultivation of the soil. 
Of steam-wagons for roads or fields, steam-plows for 
pulverizing and deepening the soil, and steam-culti- 
vators for keeping weeds down and rendering tillage 
more efficient, we have had many heralded in san- 
guine bulletins throughout the last forty years, but 
I am not aware that one of them has fulfilled the san- 
guine hopes of its author. Though a dozen Steam- 
Plows have been invented in this country, and sev- 
eral imported from Europe, I doubt that a single 
square mile of our country's surface has been plowed 
wholly by steam down to this hour. If it has, Louisi- 
ana — a State which one would not naturally expect 
to find in the van of industrial progress — has enjoyed 
the benefit and earned the credit of the achievement. 

Of what Steam has yet accomplished in direct aid 
of Agriculture, I have little to say, though in Great 
Britain quite a number of steam-plows are actually 
at work in the fields, and (T am assured) with fair sue- 



244: WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

€ess. Until sometliing breaks or gives out, one of 
these plows does its appointed work better and 
clieaper than suck work is or can be done by animal 
power ; but all the steam-plows whereof I have any 
knowledge seem too bulky, too complicated, too 
costly, ever to win their way into general use. I 
value them only as hints and incitements toward 
something better suited to the purpose. 

What our farmers need is not a steam-plow as a 
specialty, but a locomotive that can travel with fa- 
cility, not only on common wagon-roads, but across 
even freshly-plowed fields, without embarrassment, 
and prove as docile to its manager's touch as an aver- 
age span of horses. Such a locomotive should not 
cost more then $500, nor weigh more than a tun 
when laden with fuel and water for a half-hour's 
steady work. It should be so contrived that it may 
be hitched in a minute to a plow, a harrow, a wagon, 
or cart, a saw or grist-mill, a mower or reaper, a 
thresher or stalk-cutter, a stump or rock-puller, and 
made useful in pumping and draining operations, 
■digging a cellar or laying up a wall, as also in ditch- 
ing or trenching. We may have to wait some years 
yet for a servant so dexterous and docile, yet I feel 
confident that our children will enjoy and appreciate 
his handiwork. 

The farmer often needs far more power at one sea- 
ison than at another, and is compelled to retain and 
subsist working animals at high cost through months 
in which he has no use for them, because he must 



' STEAM m AGKICULTUEE. 245 

have tliera when those months have transpired. If 
he could replace those animals by a machine which, 
when its season of usefulness was over, could be 
cleaned, oiled, and put away under a tight roof until 
next seeding-time, the saving alike of cost and trouble 
would be very considerable. 

When our American reapers first challenged atten- 
tion in Great Britain, the general skepticism as to 
their efficiency was counteracted by the suggestion 
that, even though reaping by machinery should prove 
more expensive than reaping by hand, the ability to 
cut and save the grain-crop more rapidly than hith- 
erto would overbalance that enhancement of cost. In 
the British Isles, day after day of chilling wind and 
rain is often encountered in harvest-time : the stand- 
ing Wheat or Oats or Barley becoming draggled, or 
lodged, or beaten out, while the owner impatiently 
awaits the recurrence of sunny days. When these at 
length arrive, he is anxious to harvest many acres at 
once, since his Grain is wasting and he knows not 
how soon cloud and tempest may again be his por- 
tion. But all his neighbors are in like predicament 
with himself, and all equally intent on hurrying the 
harvest ; so that little extra help is attainable. If now 
the aid of a machine may be commanded, which will 
cut 15 or 20 acres per day, he cares less how much 
that work will cost than how soon it can be effected. 
Hence, even though cutting by horse-power had 
proved more costly than cutting by hand, it would 
still have been welcome. 



24:6 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

So it is with Plowing, here and almost everywhere. 
Our farmers have this year been unable to begin 
Plowing for Winter Grain so early as they desired, 
by reason of the intense heat and drouth, whereby 
their fields were baked to the consistency of half- 
burned brick. Much seed will in consequence have 
been sown too late, while much seeding will have 
been precluded altogether, by inability to prepare the 
ground in due season. If a machine had been at 
hand whereby 15 or 20 acres per day could have been 
plowed and harrowed, thousands would have invoked 
its aid to enable them to sow their Grain in tolerable 
season, even though the cost had been essentially 
heavier than that of old-fashioned plowing. I tra- 
versed Llinois on the 13th and 14th of May, 1859, 
when its entire soil seemed soaked and sodden with 
incessant rains, which had not yet ceased pouring. 
Inevitably, there had been little or no plowing yet 
for the vast Corn-crop of that State ; yet barely two 
weeks would intervene before the close of the proper 
season for Corn-planting. Even if these should be 
whoLy favorable, the plowing could not be eifected 
in season, and much ground must be planted too late 
or not planted at all. In every such case, a machine 
that would plow six or eight furrows as fast as a man 
ought to walk, would add immensely to the year's 
harvest, and be hailed as a general blessing. 

I recollect that a German observer of Western cul- 
tivation — a man of decided perspicacity and wide 
observation — recommended that each farmer who had 



STEAM IN AGRICULTURE. 247 

not the requisite time or team for getting in his Corn- 
crop in clue season should plow single furrows through 
his field at intervals of 3 to 3i feet, plant his Cora 
on the earth thus turned, and proceed, so soon as his 
planting was finished, to plow out the spaces as yet 
undisturbed between the springing rows of Corn. I 
do not know that this recommendation was ever 
widely followed ; but I judge that, under certain cir- 
cumstances, it might be, to decided advantage and 
profit. 

I have not attempted to indicate all the benefits 
which Steam is to confer directly on Agriculture, 
within the next half-century. That Irrigation must 
become general, I confidently believe ; and I antici- 
pate a very extensive sinking of wells, at favorable 
points, in order that water shall be drawn therefrom 
by wind or steam to moisten and enrich the slopes 
and plains around them. Such a locomotive as I 
have foreshadowed might be. taken from well to well, 
pumping from each in an hour or two siifficient 
water to irrigate several of the adjacent acres ; thus 
starting a second crop of Hay on fields whence the 
first had been taken, and renewing verdure and 
growth where we now see vegetation suspended for 
weeks, if not months. I feel sure that the mass of 
cm* farmers have not yet realized the importance and 
beneficence of Irrigation, nor the facility wherewith 
its advantages may be secured. 



XLII. 



CO-OPEEATION IN FARMING. 



The word of hope and cheer for Labor in our days 
is Co OPERATION — that is, the combination by many 
of their means and efforts to achieve results bene- 
ficial to them all. It differs radically from Com- 
munism, which proposes that each should receive 
fi'om the aggregate product of human labor enough 
to satisfy his wants, or at least his needs, whether he 
shall have contributed to that aggregate much, or 
little, or nothing at all. Cooperation insists that each 
shall receive from the joint product in proportion 
to his contributions thereto, whether in capital, skill, 
or labor. If one associate has ten children and an- 
other none. Communism would apportion to each ac- 
cording to the size of his family alone ; while Coop- 
eration would give to each what he had earned, re- 
gardless of the number dependent upon him. Thus 
the two systems are radical antagonists, and only 
the grossly ignorant or willfully blind will confound 
them. 

A young farmer, whose total estate is less than 
$500, not counting a priceless wife and child, resolves 
(248) 



CO-OPEEATION IN FARMING. 249 

to migrate from one of the old States to Kansas, 
Minnesota, or one of the Territories : he has heard 
that he will there find public land whereon he may 
make a home of a quarter-section, paying therefor 
$20 or less for the cost of survey and of the necessary 
papers. So he may : but, on reaching the Land of 
Promise, whether with or without his family, he finds 
a very large belt of still vacant land beyond the set- 
tlements already transformed into private property, 
and either not for sale at all or held on speculation, 
quite out of his reach. The public land which he 
may take under the Homestead law lies a full day's 
journey beyond the border settlements, to which he 
must look for Mills, Stores, Schools, and even High- 
ways. If he persists in squatting, with intent to earn 
his quarter-section by settlement and cultivation, he 
must take a long day's journey across unbridged 
streams and sloughs, over unmade roads, to find 
boards, or brick, or meal, or glass, or groceries ; while 
he must postpone the education of Ms children to an 
indefinite future day. Gradually, the region will be 
settled, and the conveniences of civilization will find 
their way to his door, but not till after he will have 
sufiered through several years for want of them ; often 
compelled to make a journey to get a plow or yoke 
mended, a grist of grain ground, or to minister to 
some other trivial but inexorable want. He who 
thus acquires his quarter-section must fairly earn it, 
and may be thankful if his children do not grow up 
rude, coarse, and illite7'ate. 



II 



* 



250 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

But suppose one thousand just such young farmers 
as lie is, witli no more means and no greater efficiency 
than his, were to set forth together, resolved to find a 
suitable location whereon they might all settle on ad- 
joining quarter-sections, thus appropriating the soil 
of five or six embryo townships : who can fail to see 
that three-fourths of the obstacles and discourage- 
ments which confront the soKtary pioneer Avould van- 
ish at the outset ? Roads, Bridges, Mills, — nay, even 
Schools and Churches — would be theirs almost im- 
mediately ; while mechanics, merchants, doctors, etc., 
would fairly overrun their settlement and solicit 
their patronage at every road-crossing. Within a 
year after the location of their several claims, they 
would have achieved more progress and more comfort 
than in five years under the system of stragghng and 
isolated settlement which has hitherto prevailed. The 
change I here indicate appeals to the common sense 
and daily experience of our whole people. It is not 
necessary, however desirable, that the pioneers should 
be giants in wisdom, in integrity, or in piety, to se- 
cure its benefits. A knave or a fool may be deemed 
an undesirable neighbor; but a dozen such in the 
township would not preclude, and could hardly di- 
minish, the advantages naturally resulting from set- 
tlement by Cooperation. 

ITor are these confined to pioneers transcending the 
boundaries of civilization. I wish I could induce a 
thousand of our colored men now precariously sub- 
sisting by servile labor in the cities, to strike out 



CO-OPEKATION IN FARMING. 251 

boldly for homes of tlieir own, and for liberty to di- 
rect their own labor, whether they should settle on 
the frontier in the manner just outhned, or should 
buy a tract of cheap land on Long Island, in JSTew- 
Jersey, Maryland, or, some State further South. I 
cannot doubt that the majority of them would work 
their way up to independence ; and this very ftiuch 
sooner, and after undergoing far less privation, than 
almost every pioneer who has plunged alone into the. 
primitive forest or struck out upon the broad prairie 
and there made himself a farm. 

The insatiable demand for fencing is one of the 
pioneer's many trials. Though he has cleared off 
but three acres of forest during his first Fall and 
Winter, he must surround those acres with a stout 
fence, or all he grows will be devoured by hungry 
cattle — his own, if no others. Whether he adds two 
or ten acres to his clearing during the next year, they 
must in turn be surrounded by a fence ; and nothing 
short of a very stout one will answer : so he goes on 
clearing and fencing, usually burning up a part of 
his fence whenever he burns over his new clearing ; 
then building a new one around this, which will have 
to be sacrificed in its turn. I believe that many pio- 
neers have devoted as much time to fencing their 
fields as to tilling them throughout their first six or 
eight years. 

It is different with those who settle on broad 
prairies, but not essentially better. Each pioneer 
must fence his patch of tillage with material which 



252 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMmG. 

costs liim more, and is procured with greater diffi 
culty, than though he were cutting a hole in the 
forest. Often, when he thinks he has fenced suffi- 
ciently, the hungry, breachy cattle, who roam the 
open prairies around him, judge his handiwork less 
favorably; and he wakes some August morning, 
when feed is poorest outside and most luxuriant 
within his inclosure, to find that twenty or thirty 
cattle have broken through his defenses and half de- 
stroj^ed his growing crop. 

If, instead of this wasteful lack of system, a thou- 
sand or even a hundred farmers would combine to 
fence several square miles into one grand inclosure 
for cultivation, erecting their several habitations 
witliin or without its limits, as to each should be con- 
venient — apportioning it for cultivation, or owning 
it in severalty, as they should see fit — an immense 
economy would be secured, just when, because of 
their poverty, saidng is most important. Their stock 
might range the open prairie unwatched ; and they 
might all sleep at night in serene confidence that their 
corn and cabbages were not in danger of ruthless de- 
struction. Among the settlers in our great primitive 
forests, the system of Cooperative Farming would 
have to be modified in details, while it would be in 
essence the same. 

And, once adopted with regard to fencing, other 
adaptations as obvious and beneficent would from 
day to day suggest themselves. Each pioneer would 
learn how to advance his own prosperity by com- 



CO-OPEKATION IN FAKMING. 253 

billing his efforts with those of his neighbors. He 
would perceive that the common wants of a hundred 
may be suppKed by a combined effort at less than 
half the cost of satisfying them when each is pro- 
vided for alone. He would grow year by year into 
a clearer and "firmer conviction that short-sighted 
selfishness is the germ of half the evils that afflict the 
human race, and that the true and sure way to a 
bounteous satisfaction of the wants of each is a gen- 
erous and thoughtful consideration for the needs of 
all. 

And here let me pay my earnest and thankful 
tribute to Mr. E. Y. de Boissiere, a philanthropic 
Frenchman, who has purchased 3,300 acres of 
mainly rolling prairie-land in Kansas, near Prince- 
ton, Franklin County, and is carefully, cautiously, 
laying thereon the foundations of a great cooperative 
farm, where, in addition to the usual crops, it is ex- 
pected that Silk and other exotics will in due time be 
extensively grown and transformed into fabrics, and 
that various manufactures will vie with AotcuI- 
ture in affording attractive and profitable employ- 
ment to a considerable population. I have not 
been accustomed "to look with favor on our new 
States and unpeopled Territories as an arena for 
such experiments, since so many of their early 
settlers are intent on getting rich by land-specula- 
tion — at all events, through the exercise of some 
others' muscles than their own — while the oppor- 



254 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

tunities for and incitements to migration and re- 
location are so multiform and powerful. Doubt- 
less, M. de Boissiere will be often tried by stam- 
pedes of his volunteer associates, who, after the 
novelty of cooperative effort has worn off, will 
find life on his domain too tame and humdrum for 
their excitable and high-strung natures. I trust, 
however, that he will persevere through every dis- 
couragement, and triumph over every obstacle ; that 
the right men for associates will gradually gather 
about him ; that his enterprise and devotion will 
at length be crowned by a signal and inspiring suc- 
cess ; and that thousands will be awakened by it to a 
larger and nobler conception of the mission of In- 
dustry, and the possibilities of achievement which 
stud the path of simple, honest, faithful, persistent 
Work. 



XLIII. 



farmers' cltibs. 



Farmers, like other men, divide naturally into two 
classes — those who do too much work, and those who 
do too little. I know men who are no farmers at all, 
only by virtue of the fact that each of them inherited, 
or somehow acquired, a farm, and have since lived 
upon and out of it, in good part upon that which it 
could not help producing — they not doing so much as 



FAEMERS' CLUBS. 255 

one hundred fair days' work each per annum. One 
of this class never takes a periodical devoted to farm- 
ing ; evinces no interest in county fairs or township 
clubs, save as they may afford him an excuse for 
greater idleness ; and insists that there is no profit in 
farming. As land steadily depreciates in quality 
under his management, he is apt to sell out when- 
ever the increase of population or progress of im- 
provement has given additional value to his farm, 
and move off in quest of that undiscovered country 
where idleness is compatible with thrift, profits are 
realized from light crops, and men grow rich by do- 
ing nothing. 

The opposite class of wanderers from the golden 
mean is hardly so numerous as the idlers, yet it is 
quite a large one. Its leading embodiment, to my 
mind, is one whom I knew from childhood, who, 
born poor and nowise favored by fortune, was rated 
as a tireless worker from early boyhood, and who 
achieved an independence before he was forty years 
old in a rural New-England township, simply by 
rugged, persistent labor — in youth on the farms of 
other men ; in manhood, on one of his own. This 
man was older at forty than his father, then seventy, 
and died at fifty, worn out with excessive and unin- 
termitted labor, leaving a widow who greatly prefer- 
red him to all his ample wealth, and an only son who, 
so soon as he can get hold of it, will squander the 
property much faster, and even more unwisely, than 
his father acquired it. 



256 WHAT I KNOW OP FARMING. 

To the class of which this man was a fair repre- 
sentative, Farmers' Clubs must prove of signal value. 
Though there should be nothing else than a Farmers' 
Club in his neighborhood, it can hardly fail in time 
to make such a one realize that life need not and 
should not be all drudgery ; that there are other 
things worth living for beside accumulating wealth. 
Let his wife and his neighbor succeed in drawing 
such a one into two or three successive meetings, and 
he can hardly fail to perceive that thrift is a product 
of brain as well as of muscle ; that he may grow rich 
by learning and knowing as well as by delving, and 
tbat, even though he should not, there are many 
things desirable and laudable beside the accumulation 
of wealth. 

A true Farmers' Club should consist of all the fam- 
ilies residing in a small township, so far as they can 
be induced to attend it, even though only half their 
members should be present at any one meeting. It 
should limit speeches to ten minutes, excepting only 
those addresses or essays which eminently qualified 
persons are requested to specially prepare and read. 
It should have a president, ready and able to repress 
all ill-natured personalities, all irrelevant talk, and 
especially all straying into the forbidden regions of 
political or theological disputation. At each meeting, 
the subject should be chosen for the next, and not 
Jess than four members pledged to make some obser- 
vations thereon, with liberty to read them if unused 
to speaking in public. These having been heard, 



. farmers' clubs. 257 

the topic slionld be open to discussion hj all pres- 
ent : the humblest and youngest being specially en- 
couraged to state any facts within their knowledge 
which they deem pertinent and cogent. Let every 
person attending be thus incited to say something cal- 
culated to shed light on the subject, to say this in 
the fewest words possible, and with the utmost care 
not to annoy or offend others, and it is hardly jDossi- 
ble that one evening per week devoted to these 
meetings should not be spent with equal pleasure 
and profit. 

The chief end to be achieved through such meet- 
ings is a development of the faculty of observation 
aud the habit of reflection. Too many of us pass 
through life essentially blind and deaf to the wonders 
and glories manifest to clearer eyes all around us. 
The magnificent phenomena of the Seasons, even 
the awakening of Nature from death to hfe in 
Spring-time, make little impression on their senses, 
still less on their understandings. There are men 
who have passed forty times through a forest, and 
yet could not name, within half a dozen, the various 
species of trees which compose it ; and so with 
everything else to which they are accustomed. They 
need even more than knowledge an intellectual awak- 
ening ; and this they could hardly fail to receive from 
the discussions of an intelligent and earnest Farmers' 
Club. 

A genuine and lively interest in their vocation is 
needed by many farmers, and by most farmers' sons. 



258 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

Too many of these regard their homesteads as a 
prison, in which they must remain until some avenue 
of escape into the great world shall open before them. 
The farm to such is but the hollow log into v\diich a 
bear crawls to wear out the rigors of Winter and 
await the advent of Spring. Too many of our boys 
fancy that they know too much for farmers, when in 
fact they know far too little. A good Farmers' Club, 
faithfully attended, would take this conceit out of 
them, imbuing them instead with a realizing sense of 
their ignorance and incompetency, and a hearty de- 
sire for practical wisdom. 

A recording secretary, able to state in the fewest 
words each important suggestion or fact elicited in 
the course of an evening's discussion, would be 
hardly less valuable or less honored than a capable 
president. A single page would often suffice for all 
that deserves such record out of an evening's discus- 
sion ; and tliis, being transferred to a book and pre- 
served, might be consulted with interest and profit 
throughout many succeeding years.. JSTo other duty 
should be required of the member who rendered this 
service, the correspondence of the Club being de- 
volved upon another secretary. The habit of bring- 
ing grafts, or plants, ox seeds, to Club meetings, for 
gratuitous distribution, has been found to increase 
the interest, and enlarge the attendance of those 
formerly indifferent. Almost every good farmer or 
gardener will sometimes have choice seeds or grafts 
to spare, which he does not care or cannot expect to 



farmers' clubs. 259 

sell, and these being distributed to the Club will not 
only increase its popularity, but give him a right to 
share when another's surplus is in like manner dis- 
tributed. If one has choice fruits to give away, the 
Club will afford him an excellent opportunity ; but I 
would rather not attract persons to its meetings by a 
prospect of having their appetites thus gratified at 
others' expense. A Flower-Show once in each year, 
and an Exhibition of Fruits and other choice products 
at an evening meeting in September or October, 
should sufiice for festivals. Let each member con- 
sider himself pledged to bring to the Exhibition the 
best material result of his year's efforts, and the ag- 
gregate will be satisfactory and instructive. 

The organization of a Farmers' Club is its chief 
difficulty. The larger number of those who ought to 
participate usually prefer to stand back, not commit- 
ting themselves to the effort until after its success has 
been assured. To obviate this embarrassment, let a 
paper be circulated for signatures, pledging each 
signer to attend the introductory meeting and bring 
at least a part of his family. When forty have 
signed such a call, success will be well-nigh as- 
sured. 



XLiy. 

WESTERN lEEIGATION. 

I HAVE already set forth mj belief tliat Irrigation 
is everywhere practicable, is destined to be generally 
adopted, and to prove signally beneficent. I do not 
mean that every acre of the States this side of the 
Missouri will ever be thus supplied with water, but 
that some acres of every township, and of nearly 
every farm, should and will be. I propose herein to 
speak with direct reference to that large portion of 
our country which cannot be cultivated to any pur- 
pose without Irrigation. This region, which is prac- 
tically rainless in Summer, may be roughly indicated 
as extending from the forks of the Platte westward, 
and as including all our present Territories, a portion 
of Western Texas, the entire State of ITevada, and 
at least nine-tenths of California. On this vast area, 
no rain of consequence falls between April and ~^o- 
vember, while its soil, parched by fervid, cloudless 
suns, and swept by intensely dry winds, is utterly di- 
vested of moisture to a depth of three or four feet ; 
and I have seen the tree known as Buckeye growing 
in it, at least six inches in diameter, whereon every 
(260) 



WESTEEN lEEIGATION. 2G1 

leaf was withered and utterly dead before tlie end of 
August, though the tree still lived, and would renew 
its foliage next Spring. 

Most of this broad area is usually spoken of as des- 
ert, because treeless, except on the slopes of its moun- 
tains, where certain evergreens would seem to dis- 
pense with moisture, and on the brink of infrequent 
arid scanty streams, where the all but worthless Cot- 
ton-wood is often found growing luxuriantly. A very 
little low Gamma Grass on the Plains, some strag- 
gling Bunch-grass on the mountains, with an endless 
profusion of two poor shrubs, popularly known as 
Sage-brush and Grease-wood, compose the vegetation 
of nearly or quite a million square miles. 

I will confine myself in this essay to the readiest 
means of irrigating the Plains, by which I mean the 
all bat treeless plateau that stretches from the base 
of the Rocky Mountains, 300 to 400 miles eastward, 
sloping imperceptibly toward the Missouri, and 
drained by the affluents of the Platte, the Kansas, 
and the Arkansas rivers. 

The ^orth Platte bas its sources in the western, as 
the South Platte has in the eastern, slopes of the 
Rocky Mountains. Each of them pursues a gener- 
all}^ north-east course for some 300 miles, and then 
turns sharply to the eastward, uniting some 300 miles 
eastward of the mountains, where the Plains melt 
into the Prairies. Between, these two rivers and the 
eastern base of the mountains lies an irregular delta 
or triangle, which seems susceptible of irrigation at 



262 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

a smaller cost than the residue. The location of 
Union Colony may be taken as a fair illustration of 
the process, and the facilities therefor afforded by 
nature. . 

Among the streams which, taking rise in the east- 
ern gorges of the Rocky Mountains, run into the 
South Platte, the most considerable has somehow ac- 
quired the French name of Cache la Poudre. It 
heads in and about Long's Peak, and, after emergiug 
from the mountains, runs some 20 to 25 miles nearly 
due east, with a descent in that distance of about 100 
feet. Its waters are very low in Autumn and Winter, 
and highest in May, June and July, from the melt- 
ing of snow and ice on the lofty mountains which feed 
it. Like all the streams of this region, it is broad 
and shallow, with its bed but three to four feet below 
the plains on either side. 

Greeley, the nucleus of Union Colony, is located 
at the crossing of the Cache la Poudre by the Denver- 
Pacific Pailroad, about midway of its course from 
the Kansas Pacific at Denver northward to the 
Union Pacific at Cheyenne. Here a village of some 
400 to 500 houses has suddenly grown up during the 
past Summer. 

The first irrigating canal of Union Colony leaves 
the Cache la Poudre six or eight miles above Greeley, 
on the south side, and is carried gradually further and 
further from the stream until it is fully a mile distant 
at the village, whence it is continued to the Platte. 
Branches or ditches lead thence northward, conveying 



WESTERN IRKIGATION. 263 

rills tlirongh the streets of the village, the gardens or 
plats of its inhabitants, and the public square, or 
plaza, which is designed to be its chief ornament. 
Other branches lead to the farms and five-acre allot- 
ments whereby the village is surrounded ; as stiU 
others will do in time to all the land between the 
canal and the river. In due time, another canal will 
be taken out from a point further up the stream, and 
will irrigate the lands of the colony lying south of 
the present canal, and which are meantime devoted 
to pasturage in common. 

Taking the water out of the river is here a very 
simple matter. At the head of an island, a rude 
dam of brush and stones and earth is thrown across 
the bed of the stream, so as to raise the surface two 
or three feet when the water is lowest, and very much 
less when it is highest. Thus deflected, a portion of 
the water flows easily into the canal. 

A very much larger and longer canal, leaving the 
Cache la Poudre close to the mountains, and gradu- 
ally increasing its distance from that stream to four 
or five miles, is noAv in progress by sections, and is to 
be completed this "Winter. Its length will be thirty 
miles, and it will irrigate, when the necessary sub- 
canals shall have been constructed, not less than 
40,000 acres. But it may be ten years before all this 
work is completed or even required. The lands most 
easily watered from the main canal will be first 
brought into cultivation ; the sub-canals will be dug 
as they shall be wanted. 



264 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

At first, members of tlie Colony arriving at its lo- 
cation, hesitated to take farm allotments and build 
upon them, from distrust of the capacities of the soil. 
They saw nothing of value growing upon it ; !he lit- 
tle grass found upon it was short, thin, and brown. It 
was not black, like the prairies and bottoms of Illinois 
and Kansas, but of a light yellow snuff-color, and 
deemed sterile by many. But a few took hold, and 
planted and sowed resolutely ; and, though it was too 
late in the season for most grains, the results were 
most satisfactory. Wheat sown in June produced 30 
bushels to the acre ; Oats did as well ; while Pota- 
toes, Beets, Turnips, Squashes, Cabbages, etc., yielded 
bounteously ; Tomatoes did likewise, but the plants 
were obtained from Denver. Little was done with 
Indian Corn, but that little turned out well, though I 
judge that the Summer nights are too cold here to 
justify sanguine expectations of a Corn - crop — the 
altitude being 5,000 feet above the sea, with snow- 
covered mountains always visible in the west. For 
other Grains, and for all Vegetables and Grasses, I 
believe there is no better soil in the world. 

To many, the cost of Irrigation would seem so 
much added to the expense of cultivating without 
irrigation ; but this is a mistake. Here is land en- 
tirely free from stump, or stick, or stone, which may 
easily and surely be plowed or seeded in March or 
April, and which will produce great crops of nearly 
every grain, grass or vegetable, with a very moderate 
outlay of labor to subdue and till it. The farmer 



WESTERN lEEIGATION. 265 

need not lose three days per annum by rains in the 
growing season, and need not fear storm or shower 
when lie seeks to harvest his grass or grain. Toothing 
like ague or any malarious disease exhausts his vital- 
ity or paralyzes his strength. I saw men breaking 
up for the first time tracts which had received no 
water, using but a single span of horses as team ; 
whereas, brealdng up in the Prairie States involves a 
much larger outlay of power. The advantage of 
early sowing is very great ; that of a long planting 
season hardly less so. I believe a farmer in this col- 
ony may keep his plow running through October, 
]^ovember, and a good portion of December ; start it 
again by the 1st of March, and commence seeding 
with Wheat, Oats, and Barley, and keep seeding, in- 
cluding planting and gardening, until the first of 
June, which is soon enough to plant potatoes for 
"Winter use. Thenceforth, he may keep the weeds 
out of his Corn, Roots, and Vegetables, for six weeks 
or two months ; and, as every day is a bright working- 
day, he can get on much faster than he could if Hable 
to frequent interruptions by rains. I estimate the 
cost of bringing water to each farm at $5 per acre, 
and that of leading it about in sub-ditches, so that 
it shall be available and applicable on every acre of 
that farm, at somewhat less ; but let us suppose that 
the first cost of having water everywhere and always 
at command is $10 per acre, and that it will cost 
thereafter $1 per acre to apply it, I maintain that it 
is richly worth having, and that nearly every farm 

12 



266 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

product can be grown cheaper by its help than on 
lands where irrigation is presumed unnecessary. ^ 
There are not many acres laid down to grass in ^N^ew- 
England, whether for hay or pasture, that would not 
have justified an outlay of $10 per acre to secure 
their thorough irrigation simply for this year alone. 



XLY. 



SEWAGE. 



The great empires of antiquity were doomed to 
certain decay and dissolution by a radical yice inhe- 
rent in their political and social constitution. Power 
rapidly built up a great capital, whereto population 
was attracted from every quarter ; and that capital 
became a focus of luxury and consumption. Grain, 
Meat, and Yegetables — the fat of the land and the 
spoils of the sea — were constantly absorbed by it in 
enormous quantities ; while nothing, or, at best, very 
little, was returned therefrom to the continually ex- 
hausted and impoverished soil. Thus, a few ages, or 
at most a few centuries, sufficed to divest a vast sur- 
rounding district, first, of its fertility, ultimately of 
its capacity for production. And so Nineveh, Thebes, 
Babylon, successively ceased to be capitals, and be- 
came ruins amid deserts. Rome impoverished Italy 



SEWAGE. 267 

south of the Apennines ; then Sicily ; and, at last, 
Egypt : her sceptre finally departing, because her 
millions could no longer be fed without dispersion. 

That some means must be devised whereby to re- 
turn to the soil those elements which the removal of 
crop after crop inevitably exhausts, is a truth which 
has but recently begun to be clearly understood. 
Unluckily, the difficulty of such restoration is seri- 
ously augmented by the fact that cities, and all con- 
siderable aggregations of human beings, tend strongly 
in our day to locations by the sea-side, in valleys, and 
by the margins of rivers. Anciently, cities and vil- 
lages were often built on hill-tops, or at considerable 
elevations, because foes could be excluded or repelled 
from such locations more surely, and with smaller 
force, than elsewhere. From such elevations, it need 
not have been difficult to diffuse, by means of water, 
all that could be gladly spared which would aid to 
fertilize the adjacent farms and gardens. A kindred 
distribution of the exuvi^ of our modern cities is a 
far more difficult and costly undertaking, and involves 
bold and skillful engineering. 

Yet the problem, though difficult, must be solved, 
or our great cities will be destroyed by their own 
physical impurities. The growth and expansion of 
cities, throughout the present century, have been 
wholly beyond precedent ; and thus the difficulty of 
making a satisfactory disposition of their offal has 
been fearfully augmented. The sewerage of our 
streets and houses modifies the problem, but does not 



268 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

solve it. Desolating epidemics, like the Plague, Yel- 
low Fever, and the Cholera, will often visit our great 
cities, and decimate their people, unless means can 
be found to cleanse them wholly and incessantly of 
whatever tends to pollute and render noisome their 
atmosphere. 

Sewage is the term used in England to designate 
water which, having been slightly impregnated with 
the feculence and ordure of a city or village, is 
diifused over a farm or farms adjacent, in order to im- 
part at once fertility and moisture to its soil. To 
secure an equable and thorough dissemination of 
Sewaoje, it is essential that the land to which it is aD- 
plied, if not originally level or nearly so, shall bo 
brought into such condition that the impregnated 
water may be applied to its entire surface, and shall 
thence settle into, moisten, and fertilize, each cubic 
inch of the soil. This involves a very considerable 
initial outlay ; but the luxuriance of the crops unfail- 
ingly produced, under the influence of this vivifying 
irrigation, abundantly justifies and rewards that out- 
lay. 

As yet, the application of Sewage is in its infancy ; 
since the perfect and total conversion of all that a 
great city excretes into the most available food for 
plants, requires not only immense mains and res- 
ervoirs, with a costly network of distributing dykes 
or ditches, but novel appliances in engineering, and 
a large investment of time as well as money. Years 
must yet elapse before all the excretions of a great 



SEWAGE. 269 

city like London or JSTew-Tork can tlius be trans- 
muted into tlie means of fertilizing whole counties 
in their vicinity. But the work is already well be- 
gun, and another generation will see it all but com- 
pleted. Meantime, rnany smaller cities, more eligibly 
located for the purpose, are already enriching by 
their Sewage the rural districts adjacent, which they 
had previously tended strongly to impoverish. Edin- 
burgh, the capital of Scotland, is among them. The 
little village of Romford, England, is one of those 
which have recently been made to contribute by 
Sewage to this beneficent end ; and a visit of inspec- 
tion paid to it, on the 15th of October last, by the 
London Board of Works, elicited accounts of the 
process and its results, in the London journals, which 
afiTorded hints for and incitement to similar under- 
takings in this and other countries — undertakings 
which may be postponed, but the only question is 
one of time. The Daily News of Oct. 17th, says : 

" Breton's Farm consists of 121 acres of light and 
poor gravelly soil ; and it now receives the whole 
available sewage of the town of Romford — that is, of 
about 7,000 persons. This is conveyed to the land 
by an iron pipe of 18 inches in diameter, which is 
laid under ground, and discharges its contents into 
an open tank. From this tank, the sewage is pump- 
ed to a height of 20 feet, and is then distributed over 
the land by iron or concrete troughs, or ' carriers,' 
fitted with sluices and taps, so that the amount of 
sewage applied to any given portion of the field can 



270 WHAT I KITCW OF FAEIVIING. 

be regulated witli the greatest facility and nicety. 
To insure the regular and even flow of the sewage 
when discharged from the carriers, it was necessary 
to lay out the land with mathematical accuracy; 
and it has been leveled and formed by the theodolite 
into rectilinear beds of uniform width of thirty feet, 
slightly inclining from the centres, along which the 
sewage is applied. The carriers or open troughs, by 
which the sewage is conveyed, run along the top 
of each series of these beds or strikes; and at the 
bottom there is in eyerj case a good road, by means 
of which free access is provided for a horse and cart, 
or for the steam plow — the use of which is in con- 
templation — to every bed and crop. These arrange- 
ments — the carrying out of which involved the re- 
moval of six hundred trees and a great length of 
heavy fences, the filling up of a number of ditches and 
no less than nine ponds, as well as the complete 
under- draining of the whole farm — were mainly ef- 
fected last year; but it was not until the middle 
of April, 1870, that Mr. Hope received any of this 
sewage from the town of Romford, and not until 
the following month that he obtained both the day 
and night supply. Satisfactory, therefore, as have 
been the results of the present season's operations, 
they have been obtained under disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances, and cannot be regarded as affording 
complete evidence of the benefits which may be de- 
rived from the application of sewage to even a poor 
and thin soil, which had already ruined more than 



SEWAGE. 271 

one of those who had attempted to cultivate it. To 
mention only one drawback which arose from the 
lateness of the period at which the sewage was first 
received, IVIr. Hope had not the advantage of being 
able to apply it to his seed-beds : and thus many, 
if not all his plants were not ready for setting out 
so early as they would be in a future year, and some of 
the crops have suffered in consequence — that is to say, 
have suffered in a comparative sense. Speaking 
positively, they have in all instances been much 
larger, not only than any that could have been 
grown upon the same land without the use of sew- 
age, but than any which have been raised from 
much superior land in the immediate neighborhood. 
The crops which have been or are being raised on 
different parts of the farm, are of diverse character ; 
but, with all, the method of cultivation adopted has 
been attended with almost equal success. Italian 
rye-grass, beans, peas, mangolds, carrots, broccoli, 
cabbages, savoys, beet-root, Batavia yams, Jersey 
cabbages, and Indian corn, have all grown with 
wonderful rapidity and yielded abundant harvests 
under the stimulating and nourishing influence of 
the Romford sewage. The visitors of Saturday last, as 
they tramped over the farm under the guidance of 
its energetic proprietor, had an opportunity of wit- 
nessing the abundance and excellence of many of 
these crops. Even where the mangolds, from be- 
ing planted late, had not attained any extraordi- 
nary size, it was noticeable that the plants were 



272 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

especially yigorous, and that tliere was not a vacant 
space in any of tlie rows. All the plants which had 
been placed in the ground had thriven, and would 
give a good return. Where this crop had been spe- 
cially treated with a view to forthcoming shows, the 
roots had attained an enormous size, and, like some 
of the cabbages, had assumed almost gigantic pro- 
portions. The carrots were very fine and well-grown, 
and the heads of the Walcheren broccoli were as 
white, and firm, and crispy, as the finest cauliflowers ; 
while the savoys, of unusual size and weiglit, were as 
round and hard as cannon balls; and some of the 
drumhead cabbages, although equally distinguished 
for closeness and firmness, were large enough in the 
heart to hold a good-sized child, and might, as was 
suggested upon the ground, very well be introduced 
into some pantomimic scene representing the king- 
dom of Brobdignag. Tlie Indian corn had reached 
the respectable height of some eight feet, and, with 
few exceptions, each stalk carried a good-sized and 
well-filled cob or ear. These, unless we should have 
another spell of exceptionally hot weather, will not 
ripen ; but in their green state they are readily eaten 
by horses and cattle, and prove excellent fodder. 

In the course of their peregrinations, Mr. Hope's 
guests of course paid a visit to the tank in wliich the 
sewage is received before it ispumpedon the land. We 
need hardly say that the appearance of this minia- 
ture lake of nastiness was anything but agreeable ; 
but its odor was by no means overpowering, nor, in- 



SEWAGE. 273 

deed, very offensive. The rill of bright, clear water 
which flowed in at one corner, and some of which 
was handed about in tumblers, looking as pure as the 
limpid stream which flows from the most effective 
filters that are to be seen in the windows of London 
dealers, had only a short time before flowed out of 
this hideous reservoir in a very different state. We 
had met it in the '^ carriers " flowing along in a dark, 
inky stream, not smelling much, but covered with an 
ugly gray froth which reminded one of some of the 
most disagreeable details in the manufacture of sugar 
and rum, or suggested the idea that it had been used 
for a Yerj foul wash indeed. With these reminiscen- 
ces fresh in one's memory, it required some courage 
to comply with the pressing invitations to taste this 
'effluent water.' There were, however, many of the 
party who braved the attempt ; and, by all who tasted 
it, the water was pronounced to be destitute of any 
except a slightly mineral flavor. In dry weather, this 
effluent water, which has passed through the land 
and been collected by the drains, after mixing with 
the sewage, is again pumped over the fields ; in wet 
weather, it can be turned into the brook which is 
dignified with the name of the river ~Rom. "^ ^ -^ 
We have omitted to mention that the rent paid by 
Mr. Hope is £3 per acre, and the cost of the sewage 
(at 2s. per head) £6 more." 

— I think few thoughtful readers will doubt that 
here is the germ of a great movement in advance 
for the Agriculture of all old and densely peopled 

1 2'"' 



274: WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMmG. 

communities, and that our youngest cities and man- 
ufacturing villages may wisely consider it deeply, 
with a view to its ultimate if not early imitation. 
That we are not prepared to incur the inevitable ex- 
pense of a thorough system of sewerage with reference 
to the application to the soil of all the fertilizing 
elements that a city would gladly spare, by no means 
proves that we should not consider and plan with a 
view to the ultimate creation and utilization of 
Sewage. 



XLYI. 

MOEE OF IREIGATION. 

I HAVE thus far considered Irrigation with special 
reference to those limited, yet very considerable dis- 
tricts, which are traversed or bordered by living 
streams, and, having a level or slightly rolling sur- 
face, present obvious facilities for and incitements 
to the operation. Such are the valleys of the Platte, 
and of nearly or quite all its affluents after they leave 
the Rocky Mountains ; such is the valley of the upper 
Arkansas ; such the valleys of the Smoky Hill and the 
Republican, so far down as Irrigation may be con- 
sidered necessary. Irrigation on all these seems to me 
inevitable, and certain to be speedily, though capri- 
ciously, effected. 

I believe a dam across either fork of the Platte, at 



MOEE OF IRKIGATION. 2Y5 

any favorable point above their junction, raising the 
surface of the stream six feet, at a cost not exceed- 
ing $10,000, would suffice to irrigate completely not 
less than fifty square miles of the valley below it, 
while serving at the same time to furnish power for 
mills and factories to a very considerable extent ; for 
the need of Irrigation is not incessant, but generally 
confined to two or three months per annum, and all of 
the volume of the stream not needed for Irrigation 
could be utilized as power. Thus the valleys of the 
few constant water-courses of the Plains may come 
at an early day to employ and subsist a dense and 
energetic population, engaged in the successful prose- 
cution alike of agriculture and manufactures, while 
belts, groves, and forests, of choice, luxuriant timber, 
will diversify and embellish regions now bare of 
trees, and but thinly covered with dead herbage from 
June until the following April. 

But, when we rise above the blufi*s, and look off 
across the blank, bleak areas where no living water 
exists, the problem becomes more difficult, and its 
solution will doubtless be much longer postponed. 
To a stranger, these bleak uplands seem sterile ; and, 
though such is not generally the fact, the presump- 
tion will repel experiments which involve a large 
initial outlay. The railroad companies, w^hich now 
own large tracts of these lands, will be obliged 
either to demonstrate their value, or to incite indi- 
viduals and colonists to do it by liberal concessions. 
As the case stands to-day, most of these lands, which 



276 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMIN'G. 

would have been dear at five cents per acre before 
the roads were built, could not be sold at any price 
to actual settlers, even with the railroad in plain 
sight, because of the dearth of fuel and timber, and 
because also the means of rendering them fruitful 
aud their cultivation profitable are out of reach 
of the ordinary pioneer. Hence, so long as the 
valleys of the living streams proffer such obvious in- 
vitations to settlement and tillage, by the aid of Irriga- 
tion, I judge that the higher and dryer plains will 
mainly be left to the half-savage herdsmen who rear 
cattle and sheep without feeding and sheltering 
them, by giving them the range of a quarter-section 
to each bullock, and submitting to the loss of a hun- 
dred head or so after each great and cold snow- 
storm, as an unavoidable dispensation of Providence. 

But in process of time even the wild herdsmen 
will be softened into or replaced by regular farmers, 
plowing and seeding for vegetables and small grains, 
sheltering their habitations with trees, and sending 
their children to school. This change involves 
Irrigation ; and the following are among the ways 
in which it will be effected : 

The Plains are nowhere absolutely fiat (as I pre- 
sume the " desert " of Sahara is not), but diversified 
by slopes, and swells, and gentle ridges or divides, 
affording abundant facilities for the distribution of 
water. A well, sunk on the crest of one of these 
divides, will be filled with living water at a depth 
ranging from 50 to 100 feet. A windmill of modest 



MOEE OF lEEIGATION. 27T 

dimensions placed over this well will be rarely stop- 
ped for want of impelling power : Wind being, 
next to space, the thing most abundant on the 
Plains. A reservoir or pond covering three or four 
acres may be made adjacent to the w^ell at a small 
cost of labor, by excavating slightly and using the 
earth to form an embankment on the lower side. 
The windmill, left alone, will fill the reservoir during 
the windy Winter and Spring months with water 
soon warmed in the sun, and ready to be drawn off 
as wanted throughout the thirsty season of vegetable 
growth and maturity. Carefully saved, the product 
of one well will serve to moisten and vivify a good 
many acres of grass or tillage. 

Such is the retail plan applicable to the wants of 
solitary farmers ; but I hope to see it supplemented 
and invigorated by the extensive introduction of 
Artesian wells, whereof two, by way of experiment, 
are now in progress at Denver and Kit Carson re- 
spectively. 

I need not here describe the Artesian well, farther 
than to say that it is made by boring to a depth 
ranging from 700 to more than a 1000 feet, tubing re- 
gularly from the top downward until a stream is 
reached which will rise to and above the surface, 
flowing over the top of the tube in a stream often as 
large as an average stove-pipe. Such a well, after 
supplying a settlement or modest village with w^ater, 
may be made to fill a reservoir that mil sufficiently 
Vrigate a thousand cultivated acres. Its water wil' 



278 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMINa. 

■usually be warmer than though obtahied from near 
the surface, and hence better adapted to Irrigation. 

Of course, the Artesian well is costly, and will not 
soon be constructed for uses purely agricultural ; but 
. the railroads traversing the Plains and the Great Basin 
will sometimes be compelled to resort to one with- 
out having use for a twentieth part of the water they 
thus entice from the bowels of the earth ; and that 
which they cannot use they will be glad to sell for a 
moderate price, thus creating oases of verdure and 
bounteous production. The palpable interest of rail- 
roads in dotting their long lines of desolation with 
such cheering contrasts of field and meadow and 
waving trees, render nowise doubtful their hearty 
cooperation with any enterprising pioneer who shall 
bring the requisite capital, energy, knowledge, and 
faith, to the prosecution of the work. 

These are but hasty suggestions of methods which 
will doubtless be multiphed, varied, and improved 
upon, in the light of future experience and study. 
And when the very best and most effective methods 
of subduing the Plains to the uses of civilized man 
shall have been discovered and adopted, there wiU 
still remain vast areas as free commons for the herds- 
men and sporting-grounds for the hunter of the Elk 
and the Antelope, after the Buffalo shall have utterly 
disappeared. 

I do not doubt the assertion of the plainsmen that 
rain increases as settlements are multiplied. Cross- 
ing the Plains in 1859, 1 noted indications that timber 



MORE OF lEEIGATION. 279 

had formerly abounded where none now grows ; and 
I presume that, as young trees are multiplied in the 
wake of civilization, finally thickening into clumps 
of timber and beginning a forest, more rain will fall, 
and the extension of woodlands become compara- 
tively easy. But, relatively to the country eastward 
of the Missom'i, the Plains will always be arid and 
thirsty, with a pure, bracing atmosphere that will 
form a chief attraction to thousands suffering from 
or threatened with pulmonary afflictions. A mil- 
lion of square miles, whereon is found no single 
swamp or bog, and not one lake that withstands the 
drouth of Summer, can never have a moist climate, 
and never fail to realize the need of Irrigation. 

The Plains will in time give lessons, which even 
the well-watered and verdurous East may read with 
profit. Such level and thirsty clays as largely 
border Lake Champlain, for example, traversed by 
streams from mountain ranges on either hand, will 
not always be owned and cultivated by men insen- 
sible to the profit of Irrigation. ]N^or will such rich 
valleys as those of the Connecticut, the Kennebec, 
the Susquehanna, be left to suffer year after year from 
drouth, while the water which should refresh them 
runs idly and uselessly by. Agriculture repels in- 
novation, and loves the beaten track; but such 
lessons as E^ew-England has received in the great 
drouth of 18Y0 will not always be given and endured 
in vain. 



XLYII. 

UNDEVELOPED SOUEOES OF POWEE. 

The more I consider tlie present state of our Agri- 
culture, the more emphatic is my discontent with 
the farmer's present sources and command of power. 
The subjugation and tillage of a farm, like the run- 
ning of a factory or furnace, involves a continual use 
of Power; but the manufacturer obtains his from 
sources which supply it cheaply and in great abun- 
dance, while the farmer has been content with an 
inferior article, in limited supply, at a far heavier 
cost. Yet the stream which turns the factory's 
wheels and sets all its machinery in motion traverses 
or skirts many farms as well, and, if properly liar 
nessed, is just as ready to speed the plow as to impoi 
the shuttles of a woolen-mill, or revolve the cylin- 
ders of a calico-printery. Nature is impartially kind 
to all her children ; but some of them know how to 
profit by her good-will far more than others. l\o 
doubt, we all have much yet to learn, and our grand- 
children will marvel at the proofs of stupidity 
evinced in our highest achievements ; but I am not 
mistaken in asserting that, as yet, the farmers' con- 

(a8o) 



UNDEVELOPED SOIJECES OF POWEE. 281 

trol of jN^ature's free gifts of power is very far inferior 
to that of nearly every other class of producers. 

I have been having much plowing done this Fall — ■ 
in my orchards, for what I presume to be the good of 
the trees ; on my drained swamp, because it is not 
yet fully subdued and sweetened, and I judge that 
the Winter's freezing and thawing will aid to bring 
it into condition. And then my swamp lies so low 
and absolutely flat that the thaws and rains of 
Spring render plowing it in season for Oats, or any 
other crop that requires early seeding, a matter of 
doubt and difficulty. All the land I now cnltivate, 
or seek to cultivate, has already been well plowed 
more than once ; no stump or stone impedes pro- 
gress in the tracts I have plowed this Fall; yet a 
good plow, drawn by two strong yoke of oxen, rarely 
breaks up half an acre per day ; and I estimate two 
acres per week about what has been averaged, at a 
cost of $18 for the plowman and driver ; oiFsetting 
the oxen's labor against the work done by the men 
at the barn and elsewhere apart from plowing. In 
other words : I am confident that my plowing has 
cost me, from first to last, at least, $10 per acre, and 
would have cost still more if it had been done as 
thoroughly as it ought. I am quite aware that this 
is high — that sandy soils and dry loams are plowed 
much cheaper ; and that farmers who plow well (with 
whom I do not rank those who scratch the earth to a 
depth of four or five inches) do it at a much lower 
rate. Still, I estimate the average cost in this country 



282 WHAT I KNOW OF FAHMIN-G. 

of plowing land twelve inches deep at $5 per acre ; 
and I am confident tliat it does not cost one cent less. 

'Nor is cost the only discouragement. There is not 
half so much nor so thorough plowing among us, 
especially in the Fall, as there should be. The soil 
is, for a good part of the time, too dry or too wet ; 
the weather is inclement, or the ground is frozen : 
so the plow must stand still. At length, the signs 
are auspicious ; the ground is in just the right con- 
dition ; and we would gladly plow ten, twenty, fifty 
acres during the brief period wherein it remains so ; 
but this is impossible. Others want to improve the 
opportunity as well as we ; extra teams are rarely to 
be had at any price ; and our own slow-moving oxen 
refuse to be hurried. Standing half a mile ofi^, you 
can see them move, if your eye-sight is keen, and you 
have some stationary object interposed whereby to 
take an observation ; but it is as much as ever. If 
your soil is such that you can use horses, you get on, 
of course, much faster ; but all that you gain in 
breadth you are apt to lose in depth. There may be 
spans that will take the plow right along though 
you sink it to the beam ; but they are sure to be 
slow travelers. I never knew a span that would 
plow an acre per day as I think it should be plowed ; 
though, if your only object be to get over as much 
ground as possible, you may afflict and titillate two 
acres, or as much more as you please. 

Now, I have before me a letter to TTie Times 
(London) by Mr. William Smith, of Woolston, Bucks, 



inSDEVELOPED SOUECES OF POWEE. 283 

who states that he has just harvested his fifteenth 
annual crop cultivated by steam-power, and has 
prepared his land for the sixteenth ; and he gives 
details, showing that he breaks up and ridges heavy 
clay soils at the rate of six acres per day, and plows 
lands already in tillage at the rate of fully nine acres 
per day. He gives the total cost, (including wear 
and tear,) of breaking up a foot deep and ridging 65 
acres in September and October in this year, 1870, at 
£20 6s. 6d. or about $100 in gold : call it $112 in 
our greenbacks, and still it falls consideraby below 
$2 (greenbacks) per acre. Say that labor and fuel 
are twice as dear in this country as in England, and 
this would make the cost of thoroughly pulverizing 
by steam-power a heavy clay soil to a depth of twelve 
inches less than $4 per acre here. I do not believe 
this could be done by animal power at $10 per 
acre, not considering the difficulty of getting it thor- 
oughly done at all. Mr. Smith pertinently says : 
" Horse-power could not give at any cost such valu- 
able work as this steam-power ridging and subsoiling 
is." He tills 166 acres in all, making the cost of 
steam-plowing his stubble-land 4^. 8^d. per acre (say 
$1 30 greenback). And he gives this interesting 
item : 

" ISTo. 5, light land, 12 acres, was ridge-plowed and 
subsoiled last year for beans : that operation left the 
land, after the bean-crop came off, in so nice a state, 
that cultivating once over with horses, at a cost of 
2s. per acre, was all that was needed this Autumn for 



284 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMTNG. 

wheat next year. The wheat was drilled four days 
back." 

— ^^ow I am not commending Steam as the best 
som'ce of power in aid of Agriculture. I hope we 
shall be able to do better ere long. I recognize the 
enormous waste involved in the movement of an 
engine, boiler, etc., weighing several tons, back and 
forth across our fields, and apprehend that it must be 
difficult to avoid a compression of the soil therefrom. 
A stationary engine and boiler at either end of the field, 
hauling a gang of plows this way and that by means 
of ropes and pulleys, must involve a very heavy out- 
lay for machinery and a considerable cost in its re- 
moval from farm to farm, or even from field to field. 
Either of these may be the best device yet perfected ; 
but we are bound to do better in time. 

Precisely how and when the winds which sweep 
over our fields shall be employed to pulverize and 
till the soil, are among the many things I do not 
know ; but, that the end will yet be achieved, I un- 
doubtingly trust. I know somewhat — not much — of 
what has been done and is doing, both in Europe 
and America, to extend and diversify the utilization 
of wind as a source of power, and to compress and 
retain it so that the gale which sweeps over a farm 
to-night may afi'ord a reserve or fund of power for 
its cultivation on the morrow or thereafter. I know 
a little of what has been devised and done toward 
converting and transmitting, through the medium 
of compressed air, the power generated by a water- 



UNDEVELOPED SOURCES OF POWEE. 285 

fall — say l^iagara or Minneliaha — so that it may be 
expended and utilized at a distance of miles from its 
source, impelling machinery of all kinds at half 
the cost of steam. I know vaguely of what is being 
done with Electricity, with an eye to its employ- 
ment in the production of power, by means of en- 
ginery not a tenth so weighty and cumbrous as that 
required for the generation and utilization of Steam, 
and by means of a consumption (that is, transforma- 
tion) of materials not a hundredth part so bulky and 
heavy as the water and steam which fill the boilers 
of our factories and locomotives. I am no mechan- 
ician, and will not even guess from what source, 
through what agencies, the new power will be vouch- 
safed us which is in time to pulverize our fields to 
any required depth with a rapidity, perfection, and 
economy, not now anticipated by the great body of 
our farmers. But my faith in its achievement is un- 
doubting ; and, though I may not live to see it, I 
predict that there are readers of this essay who will 
find the forces abundantly generated all around us by 
the spontaneous movement of Wind, Water, and 
Electricity — one or more, and probably by all of 
them — so utilized and wielded as to lighten immensely 
the farmer's labor, while quadrupling its efficiency 
in producing all by which our Earth ministers to the 
sustenance and comfort of man. 



XL Yin. 



EURAL DEPOPULATION. 



Complaint is widely made of a decrease in the rel- 
ative population of our rural districts ; and not with- 
out reason, or, at least, plausibility. I presume the 
Census of 1870 will return no more farmers in the 
State of 'New York, and probably some fewer in 
New England, than were shown by the Census of 
1860. The very considerable augmentation of the 
number of their people wiU be found living wholly 
in the cities and incorporated villages. I doubt 
whether there are more farmers in the State of J^ew 
York to-day than there were in 1840, though the 
total population has meantime doubled. Many farms 
have been transformed into country-seats for city 
bankers, merchants, and lawyers ; others have been 
consolidated, so that what were formerly two or three, 
now constitute but one ; and, though every body 
says, " Our farms are too large for our capital," 
" We run over too much land," etc., etc., yet, I can 
hear of few farms that have been, or are expected to 
be, divided, except into village or city lots ; while the 
prevalent tendency is still the other way. An ineffi- 
(286) 



RURAL DEPOPULATION. , 287 

cient farmer dies heavily in debt, or is sold out by 
the sheriff: his farm is rarely divided between two 
purchasers, while it is quite often absorbed into the 
estate of some thrifty neighbor ; and thus smaU 
farmers are selling out and moving westward much 
oftener than large ones. Such are the obvious facts : 
now for some of the reasons : 

I. Our State, like 'New England, was originally all 
but covered by a heavy growth of forest. The re- 
moval of this timber involved very much hard work, 
most of which has been done in this century, and 
much of it by the present generation. When I first 
traversed Chautauqua County, forty-three years ago, 
from two-thirds to three-fourths of her acres must 
have been still covered with the primeval forest — a 
tall, heavy growth of B^ch, Maple, Hemlock, White 
Pine, etc., which yielded very slowly to the efforts 
of the average chopper. Many a pioneer gave half 
his working hours for twenty years to the clearing 
off of Timber, Fencing, cutting out roads, etc., and 
had not sixty acres in arable condition at the last. 
Outside of the villages, the population of that county 
was probably as great in 1830 as it is to-day, though 
the annual production of her tillage was not half what 
it now is. Her farms are now made ; her remaining 
wood-lands are worth about as much per acre as her 
tillage ; there is now comparatively little timber-cut- 
ting, or land-clearing ; and two-thirds of the pioneers, 
or their sons who inherited their farms, have sold out, 
or been sold out, and pushed further westward. 



288 'WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

Meantime, Grazing and Dairying have extensively 
supplanted Grain-growing ; and farmers who found 
more work than they could do on 60 or 80 acres, now 
manage 160 to 320 acres with ease. I do not say 
that they ought not to farm better ; I only state the 
facts that they thriv^e by this dairy-farming, and are 
not exhausting their lands. And what is true of 
Chautauqua is measurably true of half the rural 
Counties in our State. 

II. Formerly, Wood was the only fuel known to 
our farmers, while immense quantities of it were 
burned in our cities, at the salt-works, etc. At pres- 
ent, wood is scarcely used for fuel, except as kindling, 
in any of our cities, villages, or manufactories, while 
the consumption of Coal by our farmers is already 
very large, and rapidly extending. All this reduces 
the demand for labor on our farms and in our forests, 
while increasing the corresponding demand in the 
Coal Mines, and on the railroads. Luzerne County, 
Pennsylvania, has doubled her population within the 
last twelve or fourteen years ; and this at the expense 
of our rural districts. 

III. Our agricultural implements and machinery 
grow annually more effective, and at the same time 
more costly. The outfit of a good farm costs five- 
fold what it did forty years ago. The farmer makes 
and secures his Hay far more rapidly and effectively 
than his father did, but pays far more for Reapers, 
Mowers, Rakers, etc. ; in other words, he makes 
Winter work abridge that of Summer — ^niakes a hun- 



RTJEAL DEPOPULATION. 289 

dred days' work in some village or city save thrice 
as many days' work on his farm. This enhances his 
profits, but swells our urban, while it diminishes our 
rural population. 

IV. Much has been said of the degeneracy and 
increasing sterility of the IsTew England Puritan 
stock. All this is shallow and absurd. There never 
before were so many people who proudly traced their 
origin to a 'New England ancestry as now. What is 
true in the premises is this : The l^ew England stock 
is becoming veiy widely diifused, and is giving 
place, to a considerable extent, to other elements in 
its original home. Forty years ago, at least seven- 
eighths of the inhabitants of Boston were of New 
England birth and lineage ; now, hardly half are so. 
The descendants of the Pilgrims are scattered all 
over our wide country ; while hundreds of thousands 
have flowed in from Ireland, from Germany, from 
Canada, to fill the places thus relinquished ; and, 
since most of the immigrants, whether into or out of 
I^ew England, seek their future homes in the spring- 
time of life, their children are mainly born to them 
after rather than before their migration. The Yan- 
kees have no fewer children than formerly ; but they 
are now born in Minnesota, in Illinois, in Kansas ; 
while those born in New England are, for identical 
reasons, in large proportion of Irish or of Canadian 
parentage. There are New England townships, 
whereof most of the heads of families are long past 
the prime of life ; their children having left them 

13 



290 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMTNG. 

for more attractive localities, and the work on their 
farms being now done mainly by foreign-born em- 
ployes. As a general rule, the boys first wandered 
ofi", leading the girls only the alternative of following, 
or dying in maidenhood. Marked diversities of race, 
of creed, and of education, have thus far prevented 
any considerable intermingling of the Yankee with 
the foreign element by marriage. And what is true 
of 'New England is measurably true of our own 
State. 

I have not intended by these observations to com- 
bat the assumption that our people too generally 
prefer other employments to farming. The obstacles 
to effective modern Agriculture — that is, to agricul- 
ture prosecuted by the help of efficient machinery — 
presented by that incessant alternation of rock and 
bog, which characterizes E"ew England and some 
parts of New York, I have already noted ; and they 
interpose a serious, discouraging impediment to agri- 
cultural progress. A farm intersected by two or 
three swamps and brooks, separated by steep, rocky 
ridges, and dotted over with pebbly knolls, some- 
times giving place to a strip of sterile sand, is far 
more repulsive to the capable, intelligent farmer of 
to-day than it was to his grandfather. So far as my 
observation extends, there are more ISTew England 
farms on which you cannot, than on which you can, 
find ten acres in one unbroken area suitable for plant- 
ing to Corn, or sowing to Winter Grain. Hence, 
Agriculture in the East will always seem petty and 



EUEAL DEPOPULATION. 291 

irregular when brought into contrast with the prairie 
cultivation of the West. Grain can never be grown 
here so cheapty nor so abundantly as there ; while 
the tendency of our pastures to cover themselves over 
with moss and worthless shrubs, unless frequently 
broken up and reseeded, makes even dairying more 
difficult and costly in 'New England and along its 
western border than in almost any other part of our 
country. 

Yet, these discouragements are balanced by com- 
pensations. Timber springs luxuriantly and grows 
rapidly throughout this region ; while our harsh, ca- 
pricious climate gives to our Hickory, White Oak, 
White Ash, and other varieties, qualities unknown 
to such grown elsewhere, while prized everywhere. 
Apples, and most fruits of the Temperate Zone, do 
well with us ; while our cities and manufacturing 
villages proifer most capacious markets. Potatoes 
and other edible roots produce liberally, and gener- 
ally command good prices. Hay sells for $12 to $30 
per ton, is easily grown, and is in eager and increasing 
demand. We ought to produce twice our present 
crop from the same area, and have need of every 
pound of it ; for neither our cattle nor our sheep are 
nearly so numerous nor so well fed as they should be. 
In short, there is money to be made, by those who 
have means and know how, by buying JSTew England 
farms, tilling them better, and growing much larger 
crops than their present occupants have done. There 
are many who can do better in the West ; but the 



292 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

rigHt men can still make money by farming this side 
of the Susquehanna and the Genesee ; and I would 
gladly incite some thousands more of them to try. 



XLIX. 



LAEGE AND SMALL FARMS. 



Theee is fascination for most minds in naked mag- 
nitude. The young colonel, Avho can hardly handle 
a brigade effectively in battle, would like of all things 
to command a great army ; and the tiller of fifty 
rugged acres has his ravishing dreams of the delights 
inherent in a great Western farm, with its square 
miles of corn-fields, and its thousands of cattle. Each 
of them is partly right and partly wrong. 

There are generals capable of commanding 100,000 
men. Napoleon says there were two such in his day 
— ^himself and another : and these generally find the 
work they are fit for, without special effort or aspira- 
tion. So there are men, each of whom can really 
farm a township, not merely let a herd of cattle 
roam over it unfed and unsheltered, living and dying 
as may chance : the owners expecting to grow rich 
by their natural increase. This ranching is not 
properly farming at all, but a very different and far 
ruder art. I judge that the farmers who can really 



LAP.GE AND SMALL FABM8. 293 

till — or even graze — several thousand acres of land, 
so as to rv3alize a fair interest on its value, are even 
scarcer than the farms so capacious. 

But there is such a thing as farming on a large 
scale ; and it is a good business for those who under- 
stand it, and have all the means it requires. The 
farmer who annually grows a thousand acres of good 
Grain, and takes reasonable care of a thousand head 
of Cattle, is to be held in all honor. He will usually 
grow both his Grain and his Beef cheaper than a 
small farmer could do it, and will generally find a 
good balance on the right side when he makes up 
and squares his accounts of a year's operations. I 
could recommend no man to run into debt for a great 
farm, expecting that farm to work him out of it ; but 
he who inherited or has acquired a large farm, well 
stocked, and knows how to make it pay, may well 
cling to it, and count himself fortunate in its posses- 
sion. But the great farmer is already regarded with 
sufficient envy. Most boys would gladly be such as 
he is ; the difficulty in the case is that they lack the 
energy, persistency, resolution, and self denial, re- 
quisite for its achievement. 

We will leave large farms and farming to recom- 
mend themselves, while we consider more directly the 
opportunities and reasonable expectations of the small 
farmer. 

The impression widely current that money cannot 
be made on a small farm — that, in farming, the great 
fish eat up the little ones — is deduced from very im- 



294 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

perfect data. I have admitted tliat Grain and Beef 
can usually be produced at less cost on great than on 
small farms, though the rule is not without excep- 
tions. I only insist that there are room and hope 
for the small farmer also, and that large farming can 
never absorb nor enable us to dispense with small 
farms. ^ 

I. And first with regard to Fruit. Some Tree- 
Fruits, as well as Grapes, are grown on a large scale 
in California — it is said, with profit. But nearly all 
our Pears, Apples, Cherries, Plums, etc., are grown 
by small farmers or gardeners, and are not likely to 
be grown otherwise. All of them need at particular 
seasons a personal attention and a vigilance which 
can seldom or never be accorded by the owners or 
renters of large farms. Should small farms be gen- 
erally absorbed into larger, our Fruit-culture would 
thenceforth steadily decline. 

II. The same is even more true of the production 
of Eggs and the rearing of Fowls. I have had knowl- 
edge of several attempts at producing Eggs and 
Fowls on a large scale in this country, but I have no 
trustworthy account of a single decided success in 
such an enterprise. On the contrary, many attempts 
to multiply Fowls by thousands have broken down, 
just when their success seemed secure. Some con- 
tagious disease, some unforeseen disaster, blasted the 
sanguine expectations of the experimenter, and trans- 
muted his gold into dross. 

Yet, I judge that there is no industry more capable 



LARGE AUB SMALL FAJRMS. 295 

of indefinite exfension, with fair returns, than Fowl- 
breeding on a moderate scale. Eggs and Chickens 
are in universal demand. They are luxuries appre- 
ciated alike by rich and poor; and they might be 
doubled in quantity without materially depressing 
the market. Our thronged and fashionable watering- 
places are never adequately supplied with them ; our 
cities habitually take all they can get and look around 
for more. I believe that twice the largest number 
of Chickens ever yet produced in one year might be 
reared in 1871, with profit to the breeders. Even if 
others should fail, the home market found in each 
family would prove signally elastic. 

This industry should especially commend itself to 
poor widows, struggling to retain and rear their 
children in frugal independence. A widow who, in 
the neighborhood of a city or of a manufacturing vil- 
lage, can rent a cottage with half an acre of south- 
ward-sloping, sunny land, which she may fence so 
tightly as to confine her Hens therein, whenever their 
roaming abroad would injure or annoy her neighbors, 
and who can incur the expense of constructing there- 
on a warm, commodious Hen-house, may almost cer- 
tainly make the production of Eggs and Fowls a 
source of continuous profit. If she can obtain cheap- 
ly the refuse of a slaughter-house for feed, giving with 
it meal or grain in moderate quantities, and accord- 
ing that constant, personal, intelligent supervision, 
without which Fowl-breeding rarely prospers, she 
may reasonably expect it to pay, while affording her 



296 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

an occupation not subject to the caprices of an em- 
ployer, and not requiring her to spend her days away 
from home. 

III. Though the ordinary Market Yegetables may 
be grown on large farms, the fact that they seldom 
are is significant. Cabbages, Peas, Poled Beans, 
Tomatoes, and even Potatoes, are mainly grown on 
small farms, as they always have been. There are 
sections wherein no cash market for Yegetables ex- 
ists or can be relied on ; and here they will continue 
to be grown to the extent only of the growers' re- 
spective needs ; but wherever the prevalence of man- 
ufactures or the neighborhood of a great city gives 
reasonable assurance of a market, they are grown at 
a profit per acre which is rarely realized from a 
Grain-crop. No less than $100 per acre is often, if 
not generally, achieved by the growers of Cabbage 
around this city ; and this not from rich, deep 
garden-mold, but from fair farming land, under- 
drained, subsoiled, and liberally manured. 

The careless, slipshod farmer may do better — that 
is, he will not fail so signally — in Grain cultivation ; 
but there are few more decided or brilliant successes 
than have been achieved within the last few yeare 
within sight of this City, and wholly in the tillage of 
small farms. 

I trust I have here said enough to show that there 
is a legitimate and promising field for agricultural 
enterprise and effort, other than that wliich contem- 



EXCHAiq^GE AND DISTRIBUTION. 297 

plates the ar^quisition and rule of a township, and that, 
while farming on a large area is to many attractive 
and inspiring, there are scope and incitement also for 
tillage on a humbler scale — for tillage that permits 
no weed to ripen seed, and no nest of caterpillars to 
flourish a month undisturbed — for tillage that achieves 
large crops and profits from small areas, and rejoices 
in that neatness and perfection of culture attainable 
only in the management of small farms. 



L. 



EXCHAKGE AND DISTEIBTJTION. 

The machinery whereby the farmer of our day 
converts into cash or other values that portion of his 
products which is not consumed in his house or on 
his farm, seems to me lamentably imperfect. Let me 
illustrate my meaning : 

After three all but fruitless years, we have this 
year a bountiful Apple- crop, in this State and (I be- 
lieve) throughout the N"orth. Our old orchards being 
still, for the most part, preserved and in bearing con- 
dition, while a good many young ones, planted ten to 
twenty years ago, begin to fruit considerably, we 
had, throughout the three Fall months, a superabun- 
13* 



298 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

dance of this liomelj, wholesome, palatable fruit. It 
should have been cheap for the great body of our 
mechanics and laborers to provide their families with 
all the ripe, good Apples that they could consume 
without injuring themselves by gluttony. Good Ap- 
ples should have been constantly displayed on every 
workingman's table, to be eaten raw as a dessert, or 
baked and eaten with bread and milk for breakfast 
or supper. Each provident housewife should now 
have her tub of apple-sauce, her barrel of dried ap- 
ples, or both, for Winter use ; while a dozen bushels 
of good keepers should be stored in every cellar, to 
be drawn upon from day to day during the next four 
or five months. In short, Apples should have been 
and be, from last August to next May, as common as 
bread and potatoes, and should have been and be as 
freely eaten in every household and by every fireside. 

How nearly have we realized this ? 

I will not guess how many milhons of bushels 
have rotted under the trees that bore them, been 
eaten by animals to little or no profit, or turned into 
cider that did not sell for so much as it cost, counting 
the Apples of no value. Living immediately on a 
railroad that runs into this City, wherefrom my place 
is 35 miles distant, I should be able to do better with 
Apples than# most growers ; and yet I judge that 
half my Apples were of no use to me. Many of 
them sold in this City for $1 per barrel, including the 
cask, which cost me 40 cents ; and, when you have 
added the cost of transportation, you can guess that 



EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION. ' 299 

I had no surplus, after paying men $1.50 per day for 
picking and barreling them. I sold all I could to 
vinegar-makers at fifty cents per bushel for cider- 
apples — the casks' being returned. But they could 
not take all I wished to sell them, there being so 
many sellers pressing to get rid of their windfalls be- 
fore they rotted on their hands that even this market 
was glutted. That it was much worse for the farmer 
a dozen miles from a railroad and a hundred from 
the nearest city, none can doubt. I have heard that, 
in parts of Connecticut, cider was sold for fifty cents 
per barrel to whoever would furnish casks, and tliat 
their size was hardly considered. Manifestly, this 
left nothing for the apples. 

If Apples could have been daily supplied to our 
poorer citizens in such quantities as they could con- 
veniently take, at from fifty to seventy-five cents per 
bushel, according to quality and comeliness, I am 
confident that this City and its suburbs would have 
.taken Two or Three Millions of bushels more than 
they have done ; and the same is true of other cities. 
But the poor rarely buy a barrel of Apples at once ; 
and they have been required to pay as much for half 
a peck as I could get for a bushel just like them. In 
other words : the hucksters and middlemen set so 
high a price on their respective services in dividing 
up a barrel of Apples and conveying them from the 
rural producer to the urban consumer that a large 
portion of the farmer's apples must rot on his hands 
or be sold by him for less than the cost of harvesting, 



300 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMmG. 

while tbe poor of the cities find them too dear to be 
freely eaten. 

Nor are Apples singular in this respect. I would 
like to grow a thousand bushels of English (round) 
and French or Swede Turnips per annum if I could 
be sure of getting $1 per barrel for them delivered 
at the railroad. If the poor of this City could buy 
soch Turnips throughout their season by the half 
peck at the rate of $2 per barrel, I believe they would 
buy and eat many more than they do. But they are 
usually asked twenty-five cents per half peck, which' 
is at the rate of $5 per barrel ; and at this rate they 
hold them too dear for every-day use. So the Tur- 
nips are not grown, or the cattle are invited to clear 
them off before they rot and become worthless and a 
nuisance. 

Quite often, a green youth undertakes to get rich 
by farming near some great city. He has heard and 
believes that Cabbages bring from $5 to $8 and even 
$10 per hundred. Squashes from $10 to $25 per hun- 
dred, Watermelons from $20 to $50, and so on. He 
has made his calculations on this basis, and sanguinely 
expects to make money rapidly. But his products, 
in the first place, fall short of his estimates ; they are 
not ready for market so soon as he expected they 
would be ; and, when at length they are ready, every 
one else seems to have rushed in ahead of him. The 
market is glutted ; no one seems to want his " truck" 
at any figure ; he sells it for a song, and quits farm 
ing disgusted and bankrupt. Maybe, his stuff would 



EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION. 301 

have sold much better next week or the week after ; 
but he could not afford to bring it to market and take 
it back day after day, on the chance that the demand 
for it would improve by-and-by. I judge that more 
young men have on this account turned their backs 
on farming, after a brief trial, than on any other. 
They might have borne up against the shortness of 
their crops, hoping for better luck next time ; but 
the necessity for selling them for a price that would 
not have reimbursed their cost, had they been ever so 
luxuriant, utterly disheartens and alienates them. 

I preach no crusade against hucksters and middle- 
men. I hold them, in the actual state of things, 
benefactors to both producers and consumers. In so 
far as they deal honestly and meet promptly their 
obligations, they deserve commendation rather than 
reproach. What I urge is, that more economical and 
efficient machinery of exchange and distribution 
ought to be devised and set at work — machinery that 
would do all that is required at a moderate, reason- 
able cost. 

I would like to see one of our solvent, weU-man- 
aged Railroads advertise that it would henceforth buy 
at any of its stations all the farmers' produce that 
might be offered, and pay the highest prices that the 
state of the markets would justify. Let its agents 
purchase whatever came along — a basket of eggs, a 
coop of chickens, a barrel of apples, a sack of beans, 
a pail of currants — anything that could be sold in 
the city to. which it runs, and which would conduce 



302 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

to human sustenance or comfort. Its object should 
be Freight — the rapid and vast increase of its trans- 
portations, not extra profit on the articles transported. 
But let its agents be ready to buy at fair prices what- 
ever was offered, paying cash down, and pushing 
everything purchased directly into market, so as to 
have the money back to buy more with directly. The 
Railroad Company, thus owning nearly everything 
edible it brought into market, would buy and sell at 
uniform prices, and not bid against itself, as a crowd 
of hucksters and middlemen will often do. I am 
confident that a Kailroad that would inaugurate this 
system on a right basis, saying to every farmer living 
near it, " Grow whatever your soil is best adapted to, 
and bring it to our station : there, you shall have cash 
down for it, at the highest price we can afford to 
give," would rapidly double and quadruple its 
freights, and would thus build up a business which 
has no parallel under the present system. 

It is urged, in opposition to this proposal, that a 
Kailroad so managed would monopolize markets, and 
deal on its own terms with the producer and consum- 
er. If there were but one railroad entering a great 
city, and no other mode of reaching it, this objection 
would be plausible, but not in the actual case. Who- 
ever chose would be at liberty to start an opposition, 
and to use the railroad or dispense with it as he 
found advisable. 



LI. 



WESTTEE WOEK. i 

The dearth of employment in Winter for farm la- 
borers is a great and growing evil. Thousands, be- 
ing dismissed from work on the farms in E^ovember, 
drift away to some city, under a vague, mistaken im- 
pression that there must be work at some rate where 
so much is being done and so many require service, 
and squander their means and damage their morals in 
fruitless quest of what is not there to be had. When 
Spring at length arrives, they sneak back to the rural 
districts, ragged, penniless, debauched, often diseased, 
and every way deteriorated, by their Winter plunge. 
For their sakes not only, but for the sakes also of 
those who will employ and those who must work 
with them hereafter, this drifting to the cities should 
be stopped. 

In its present magnitude, it is a very modern evil. 
Far within my recollection, there was timber to cut 
and haul to the saw-mill, wood to cut, draw, and pre- 
pare for the year's fuel, with forest-land to be cleared 
and fitted for future cultivation, even in New-Eng- 

(303) 



304 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

land. Those who chose to work with ax or team 
were seldom idle in Winter. Kow, there is little 
timber to cut, little land to clear, and coal is rapidly 
supplanting wood as fuel. So a larger and larger 
number of farm laborers is annually turned off when 
the ground freezes to live as they may for the next 
three or four months. 

I recognize tbe right of the farmer, who has given 
twelve or more hours per day to the tillage of his 
acres and the saving of his crops throughout the 
genial months, to take the world more easily in Win- 
ter. He should now have leisure to return visits, to 
post and balance his books, and to improve his mind 
by study and reflection. Having worked hard when 
he must, he ought to rest and recuperate when he 
can. But he gravely errs who supposes that, the 
ground being frozen, there is no longer work to be 
done on the farm until the ground is fit to plow a- 
gain. On the contrary, he who realizes that the far- 
mer is a manufacturer of food and fibrous substances 
from raw materials of far inferior value must see 
that, so soon as one harvest has been secured, the 
cultivator should devote his attention to the collec- 
tion and utilization of the elements wherefrom a larger 
crop may be obtained from the same acres next season. 

And first as to Muck. 'No one who has not valued 
and sought it is likely to know how generally abun- 
dant and accessible this material is. I have found it 
in inexhaustible supply on the land of a pretty good 
cultivator who, after working a fair farm ten years, 



WINTER WORK. ijiJO 

sold it because (as lie supposed) it was destitute of 
this basis of extensive fertilization. " Seek, and je 
shall find," implies that those who do not seek will 
rarely find ; and such is the fact. Where rock 
abounds, Muck is rarely wanting. It covers many 
thousand acres of Jersey sands, where rock is un- 
known ; but show me a region ridged or ribbed Vs^ith 
rock, and I shall confidently expect to find Muck on 
it, though none has been known or supposed to exist 
there. And he who either has or can buy a bed of 
Muck within half a mile of his barn, his sty, his hen- 
house, may dig and draw from it all Winter with a 
moral certainty that it will generously reward his out- 
lay. Begin as soon after haying as you can spare tiie 
time, and cut an outlet so deep that you may there- 
after work dryshod ; thenceforth, dig and pile on the 
nearest accessible spot of dry ground, to be drawn 
away to the barn-yard and out-houses as opportunity 
presents itself. But, even though you have done 
nothing till the ground freezes, do not say it is now 
too late, but set to work. You can often team in 
Winter where you could not at any other season ; 
and, in digging Muck from a swamp or bog well fro- 
zen over, you are not apt to be troubled with water. 
Draw all you can ; but dig much more ; for no mon- 
ey at lawful interest pays so well as Muck left to dry 
and cure for months before you draw it. I think I 
do not over-estimate the average value of a cubic yard 
of Muck, well cured and mixed with warmer fertili- 
zers before application to the soil^ at one dollar ; and 



306 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

I think there are few farmers in the Old Thirteen 
States who cannot obtain it for less than that. 

Where Muck is not to be had, I believe,the tiller 
of a sand J or gravelly farm who can get access to a 
bed or bank of clay may profitably dig and draw this, 
to be used as he wonld use Muck if he had it, and 
even for direct application to the soil. I do not think 
this method the most advisable ; -yet I feel sure that 
clay spread over a sandy or gravelly field that has 
been laid down to grass is worth fifty cents per cu- 
bic yard wherever Hay is worth $12 per tun ; but I 
would wish to apply it not later than December. 

He who has fit places of deposit should draw all his 
Lime, Plaster, and other commercial fertilizers, in 
Winter, so as to be ready for use when required. 
Mix your Lime while fresh from the kiln with Muck, 
at the rate of a bushel of the former to a cubic yard 
of the latter, and the Muck will be ready for use far 
sooner than it otherwise would be. Be careful not 
to mix Lime with animal manures in any case, since 
it expels Ammonia, whereas the sulphur of Plaster 
combines with that volatile element and fixes it. 
There are some farmers who do, but twenty times as 
many who do not, use Plaster enough about their sta- 
bles and pig-pens. They ought to realize that a bad 
smell implies a waste of Ammonia, which a farmer, 
unless very rich, can hardly afibrd. 

Fences should all be scrutinized as Winter goes off, 
and put into thorough condition for next season's ser- 
vice. 



WINTER WORK. 307 

Fruit-trees should be relieved of all dead or dying 
branches, all suckers, and cut back where towering 
too high, or spreading too wide. It may be better 
for the trees to do all pruning in May or June ; but 
the farmer who defers it to that season is very likely 
to be hurried into postponing it to another year — and 
another. 

There is scarcely a forest of second or later growth 
which would not pay for thinning and trimming, if 
well done. That which is cut out may be turned to 
good account as bean-poles, pea-brush. Summer fuel, 
etc., while that which is left will grow faster, taller, 
and more shapely, to reward you doubly for your 
pains. 

— These are but suggestions. Any farmer can add 
to or improve upon them if he will give an hour's 
thought to the subject. The best laborers can be 
hired for a full year at a price not very much exceed- 
ing that which will secure their services for eight or 
nine months. In the interest alike of good crops and 
good morals, I urge every one who can to resolve 
that he will henceforth hire by the year, or in some 
way manage to employ his laborers in Winter as well 
as in Summer. 



LII. 



sin^iivimG UP. 



In the foregoing essays, I have set forth, as clearly 
as I could, the facts within my knowledge which 
seem calculated to cast light upon the farmer's voca- 
tion, and the principles or rules of action which they 
have suggested to my mind. I have been careful 
not to throw any ftdse, delusive halo over this indis- 
pensable caUing, and by no means to induce the be- 
lief that the farmer's lot is necessarily and uniformly 
a happy one. I know that IJs is not the royal road 
to rapid acquisition, and that few men are likely to 
amass great wealth by qaietly tilling the soil. I 
know, moreover, that what passes for farming among 
us is not so noble, so intellectual, so attractive, a pur- 
suit as it might and should be — that most farmers 
might farm better and live to better purpose than 
they do. Of all the false teachiug, I most condemn 
that which flatters farmers as though they were demi- 
gods and their calling the grandest and the happiest 
ever followed by mortals, when the hearer, unless 
very green, must feel that the speaker does n't be- 
lieve one word of all he utters ; for, if he did, he 
. (308) 



su:mmi]S'G up. 309 

would be farming, instead of living by some profes- 
sion, and talking as tliougb his auditors did not know 
wheat from chaif. I regard the Agriculture of this 
country as very far below the standard which • it 
should ere this have reached : I hold that the great 
mass of our cultivators might and should farm better 
than they do, and that better farming would render 
their sons better citizens and better men. If a single 
line of this little work should seem calculated to ca- 
jole its readers into self-complacency rather than in- 
struct them, I beg them to believe that their impres- 
sion wrongs my purpose. 

I am fully aware that others have treated my 
theme with fuller knowledge and far greater ability 
than I brought to its discussion. '^ Then why not 
leave them the field f ' Simply because, when all 
have written who can elucidate my theme, at least 
three-fourths of those who ought to study and ponder 
it will not have read any treatise whatever upon 
Agriculture — will hardly have yet regarded it as a 
theme whereon books should be written and read. 
And, since there may be some who will read this 
treatise for its writer's sake — will read it when they 
could not be persuaded to do like honor to a more 
elaborate and erudite work — I have written in the 
hope of arousing in some breasts a spirit of inquiry 
with regard to Agriculture as an art based on Science 
— a spirit which, having been aVakened, will not 
fall again into torpor, but which will lead on to the 
perusal and study of profoimder and better books. 



310 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 

In tlie foregoing essays, I have sought to establish 
the following propositions : 

1. That good farming is and must ever be a paying 
business, subject, like all others, to mischances and 
pnll-backs, and to the general law that the struggle 
up from nothing to something is ever an arduous 
and almost always a slow process. In the few in- 
stances where wealth and distinction have been 
swiftly won, they have rarely proved abiding. There 
are pursuits wherein success is more envied and 
dazzling than in Agriculture ; but there is none 
wherein efficiency and frugality are more certain to 
secure comfort and competence. 

2. Though the poor man must often go slowly, 
where wealth may attain perfection at a bound, and 
though he may sometimes seem compelled to till 
fields not half so amply fertilized as they should be, 
it is nevertheless inflexibly true that bounteous crops 
are grown at a profit, while half and quarter crops 
are produced at a loss. A rich man may afford to 
grow poor crops, because he can afford to lose by his 
year's farming, while the poor man cannot. He 
ought, therefore, to till no more acres than he can 
bring into good condition — to sow no seed, plow no 
field, where he is not justified in expecting a good 
crop. Better five acres amply fertilized and thor- 
oughly tilled than twenty acres which can at best make 
but a meager return, and which a dry or a wet sea- 
son must doom to partial if not absolute failure. 

3. In choosing a location, the farmer should resolve 



SUMMING UP. 311 

to choose once for all. Roaming from State to State, 
from section to section, is a sad and far too common 
mistake. ISTot merelj is it true that '' The rolling 
stone gathers no moss," but the farmer who wanders 
from place to place never acquires that intimate 
knowledge of soil and climate which is essential to 
excellence in his vocation. He cannot read the 
clouds and learn when to expect rain, when he may 
look for days of sunshine, as he could if he had lived 
twenty years on the same place. Choose your home 
in the East, the South, the Center, the West, if you 
will (and each section has its peculiar advantages) ; 
but choose once for all, and, having chosen, regard 
that choice as final. 

4. Our young men are apt to plunge into responsi- 
bilities too hastily. They buy farms while they lack 
at once experience and means, incur losses and debts 
by consequent miscalculations, and drag through life 
a w^eary load, which sours them against their pursuit, 
when the fault is entirely their own. 'No youth 
should undertake to manage a farm until after several 
years of training for that task under the eye of a 
capable master of the art of tilhng the soil. If he 
has enjoyed the requisite advantages on his father's 
homestead, he may possibly be qualified to manage 
a farm at twenty-one ; but there are few who might 
not profitably wait and learn, in the pay of some suc- 
cessful cultivator, for several years longer; while I 
cannot recall an instance of a youth rushing out of 
school or a city counting-house to show old farmers 



312 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMINa. 

how their work ought to be done, that did not result 
in disaster. It is very well to know what Science 
teaches with regard to farming; but no man was 
ever a thoroughly good farmer who had not spent 
some years in actual contact with the soil. 

5. While every one says of his neighbor, " He 
farms too much land," the greed of acquisition does 
not seem at all chastened. Men stagger under loads 
of debt to-day, who might relieve themselves by 
selling off so much of their land as they cannot 
profitably use ; but everj one seems intent on hold- 
ing all he can, as if in expectation of a great advance 
in its market value. And yet you can buy farms in 
every old State in the Union as cheaply per acre as 
they could have been bought in like condition sixty 
years ago ; and I doubt their selling higher sixty 
years hence than they do now. 'No doubt, there are 
lands, in the vicinage of growing cities or villages, 
that have greatly advanced in value ; but these are 
exceptions : and I counsel every young farmer, every 
poor farmer, to buy no more land than he can culti- 
vate thoroughly, save such as he needs for timber. 
ISTever fear that there will not be more land for sale 
when you shall have the money wherewith to buy it ; 
but shun debt as you would the plague, and prefer 
forty acres all your own to a square mile heavily 
mortgaged. 1 never lifted a mill-stone; but I have 
undertaken to carry debts, and they are fearfully 
heavy. 

6. I know that most American farms east of the 



STJMMmG TIP. 313 

Roanoke and the Wabasli have too many fields and 
fences, and that the too prevalent custom of allowing 
cattle to prowl over meadow, tillage and forest, from 
September to May, picking up a precarious and in- 
adequate subsistence by browsing and foraging at 
large, is slovenly, unthrifty, and hardly consistent 
with the requirements of good neighborhood. It is 
at best a miseducation of your cattle into lawless 
habits. I do not know just where and when all pas- 
turing becomes wasteful and improvident ; but I do 
know that pasturing fosters thistles, briers, and every 
noxious weed, and so is inconsistent with cleanly and 
thorough tillage. I know that the same acres will 
feed far more stock, and keep them in better condi- 
tion, if their food be cut and- fed to them, than if they 
are sent out to gather it for themselves. I know that 
the cost of cutting their grass and other fodder with 
modern machinery need not greatly exceed that of 
driving them to remote pastures in the morning and 
hunting them up at nightfall. I know that penning 
them ten hours of each twenty-four in a filthy yard, 
where they have neither food nor drink, is unwise ; 
and I feel confident that it is already high time, 
wherever good grass-land is worth $100 per acre, to 
limit pasturage to one small field, as near the center 
of the farm as may be, wherein shade and good 
water abound, into which green rye, clover, timothy, 
oats, sowed corn, stalks, etc., etc., may successively 
be thrown from every side, and where shelter from a 
cold, driving storm, is provided ; and that, if cows 
14 



314 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

c(;iilcl be milked here and left tlirongh niglit as well 
as day, it would be found good economy. 

7. I know that most of ns are slashing down our 
trees most improvidently, and thus compelling our 
children to buy timber at thrice the cost at which we 
might and shonld have grown it. I know that it is 
wasteful to let White Birch, Hemlock, Scrub Oak, 
Pitch Pine, Dogwood, etc., start up and grow on 
lands which might be cheaply sown with the seeds of 
Locnst, White Oak, Hickory, Sngar Maple, Chestnut, 
Black Walnut, and White Pine. I know that no 
farm in a settled region is so large that its owner can 
really aiford to surrender a considerable portion of it 
to growing indifferent cord-wood when it would as 
freely grow choice timber if seeded therefor ; and I 
feel sure that there are few farms so small that a por- 
tion of each might not be profitably devoted to the 
2:rowin2: of vahiable trees. I know that the common 
presumption that land so devoted will yield no re- 
turn for a life-time is wrong — know that, if thickly 
and properly seeded, it will begin to yield bean-poles, 
hoop-poles, etc., the fifth or sixth year from planting, 
and thenceforth will yield more and more abundant- 
ly forever. I know that good timber, in any well- 
peopled region, should not be cut off^ but cut out — 
thinned judiciously but moderately and trimmed up, 
so that it shall grow tall and run to trunk instead of 
branches; and I know that there are all about us 
millions of acres of rocky crests and acclivities, steep 
ravines and sterile sands, that ought to be seeded to 



SUMMING UP. 315 

timber forthwitli, kept clear of cattle, and devoted to 
tree-growing evermore. 

8. I do not know that all lands may be profitably 
nnderdrained. Wooded uplands, I know, could not 
be. Fields which slope considerably, and so regu- 
larly that water never stagnates upon or near their 
surface, do very well without. Light, leachy sands, 
like those of Long Island, Southern Jersey, Eastern 
Maryland, and the Carolinas, seem to do fairly with- 
out. Yet my conviction is strong that nearly all 
Land which is to he jpersistently cultivated will in 
time he underdrained. I would urge no farmer to 
plunge up to his neck into debt in order to under- 
drain his farm. But I would press every one who 
has no experience on this head to select his wettest 
field, or the wettest part of such field, and, having 
carefully read and digested Waring's, French's, or 
some other approved work on the subject, procure 
tile and proceed next Fall to drain that field or part 
of a field thoroughly, taking especial precautions 
against back-water, and watch the effect until satis 
fied that it will or will not pay to drain further. 1 
think few have drained one acre thoroughly, and at 
no unnecessary cost, without being impelled by the 
result to drain more and faster until they had tiled at 
least half their respective farms. 

9. As to Irrigation, I doubt that there is a farm in 
the United States where something might not be 
profitably done forthwith to secure advantage from 
the artificial retention and application of water. 



310 WHAT I KNOW OF FAEMING. 

Wherever a brook or runnel crosses or skirts a farm, 
the question — " Can the water here running uselessly 
by be retained, and in due season equably diffused 
over some portion of this land ? " — at once presents 
itself. One who has never looked with this view will 
be astonished at the facility with which some acres 
of nearly every farm may be irrigated. Often, a 
dam that need not cost $20 will suffice to hold back 
ten thousand barrels of water, so that it may be led 
off along the upper edge of a slope or glade, falling 
off just enough to maintain a gentle, steady current, 
and so providing for the application of two or three 
inches of water to several acres of tillage or grass just 
when the exigencies of crop and season most urgently 
require such irrigation. Any farmer east of the 
Hudson can tell where such an application would 
have doubled the crop of 1870, and precluded the 
hard necessity of selling or killing cattle not easily 
replaced. 

Of course, this is but a rude beginning. In time, 
we shall dam very considerable streams mainly to 
this end, and irrigate hundreds and thousands of acres 
from a single pond or reservoir. Wells will be sunk 
on plains and gentle swells now comparatively arid 
and sterile, and wind or steam employed to raise 
water into reservoirs whence wide areas of surround- 
ing or subjacent land will be refreshed at the critical 
moment, and thus rendered bounteously productive. 
On the vast, bleak, treeless Plains of the wild West, 
even Artesian wells will be sunk for this purpose ; and 



SUMMrPTG UP. 31T 

the water thus obtained will prove a source of fer- 
tility as well as refresliment, enriching the soil by 
the minerals which it holds in solution, and insuring 
bounteous crops from wide stretches of now barren 
and worthless desert. Immigration will yet thickly 
dot the great Sahara with oases of verdure and plenty ; 
but it will, long ere that, have covered the valleys 
of our Great Basin and those which skirt the af- 
fluents of the savage and desolate Colorado with a 
beauty and thrift surpassing the dreams of poets. 
And yet, its easiest and readiest triumphs are to be 
won right here — in the valleys of the Connecticut, 
the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac. 

10. As to Commercial Fertilizers, I think I hare 
been well paid for the application of Gypsum (Plaster 
of Paris) to my npland grass at the rate of one busliel 
per acre per annum, while my tillage has been sup- 
plied with it by dusting my stables with it after each 
cleaning, and so applying it mingled with barn-yard 
manures. Lime (unslaked) from burned oyster-shells, 
costing me from 25 to 30 cents per bushel delivered, 
I have applied liberally, and I judge, with profit. 
Pones, ground, (the finer the better) I have largely 
and I think advantageously used ; but my land had 
been mainly pastured for nearly two centuries before 
I bought it, and thus continually drained of Phos- 
phates, yet never replenished : so my experience does 
not prove that the farmers of newer lands ought to 
buy bones, though I advise them to apply all they 
can save or pick up at small cost. Pound them very 



818 WHAT I KNOW OF FAKMING. 

fine with a beetle or ax-head on a flat stone, and give 
them to jour fowls : if they refuse a part of them, 
your soil will prove less dainty. I am not sure that 
it pays to buy any manufactured Phosphate when 
you can get Raw Bone ; though I doubt not that, for 
instant effect, the Phosphate is far superior. As to 
Guano, it has not paid me; but that may be the 
fault of careless or unskillful application. I judge 
that any one who has to deal with sterile sands 
that will not bring Clover, may wisely apply 400 
pounds of Guano per acre, provided he has noth- 
ing else that will answer the purpose. After he 
has produced one good stand of Clover, I doubt 
that he can afford to buy more Guano, unless 
he can apply it to better purpose than I have yet 
done. 

I have a strong impression that most farmers can 
do better at making and saving fertilizers than by 
buying them. Lime and Sulphur (Gypsum), if your 
soil lacks them, you must buy ; but a good farmer 
who keeps even a span of horses, three or four cows, 
as many pigs, and a score of fowls, can make for $100 
fertilizers which I would rather have than two tuns 
of Guano, costing him $180 to $200. If he has a 
patch of bog or a miry pond on his flirm — any place 
where frogs will live — he can dig thence, in the 
dry est time next Fall, two or three hundred loads of 
Muck, which, having been left to dry qu the nearest 
high ground till November or later, and then drawn 
up and dumped into liis barn-yard, pig-pen, and 



SUMMING UP. 319 

fowl-house, will be ready to come out next Spring in 
season for corn-planting, and, being liberally aj^plied,' 
will do as mucli for his crop as two tons of Guanc/ 
w^ould, and will strengthen his land far more. If 
he has no Muck, and no neighbor who can spare it 
as well as not, let him at midsummer cut all the 
weeds growing on and around his farm, and in the 
Fall gather all the leaves that can be impounded, 
using these as litter for his cattle and beds for his 
pigs, and he will be agreeably surprised at the bulk 
of his heap next Spring. 

I am an intense believer in Home Production. 
We send ten thousand miles for Guano, and suf- 
fer the equally valuable excretions of our cities to 
run to w^aste in rivers and bays, poisoning or driving 
away the fish, and filling the air with stench and 
pestilence. 'No farmer ever yet intelligently t^ried to 
enrich his land and was defeated by lack of material. 
He may not be able to do all he would like to at 
first ; but persistent efibrt cannot be baffled. 

11. Shallow culture is the most crying defect of 
our average farming. Poverty may sometimes excuse 
it ; but the excuse is stretched quite too far. If a 
farmer has bnt a poor span of horses, or a light yoke of 
thin steers, he cannot plow land as it should be plow- 
ed ; but let him double teams wdth his neighbor, and 
plow alternate days on either farm ; or, if this may 
not be, let him buy or borrow a sub-soil plow, and go 
once around with his surface plow, then hitch on to 
the sub-scil, and run another fmTOw in the hot- 



320 WHAT I KNOW C» FARISIING. 

torn of the former. There are a few intervales of 
rich, mellow soil, deposited by the inmidations of 
countless ages, where shallow culture will answer, 
because the roots of the plants run freely through 
fertile earth never yet distuibed by the plow ; but 
these marked and meagre exceptions do not invali- 
date the truth that nine-tenths of our tiUage is 
neither so deep nor so thorough as it should be. As 
a rule, the feeding-roots of plants do not run below 
the bottom of the furrows, though in some instances 
they do; and he who fancies that five or six inches 
of soil will, under our fervid suns, with our Summers 
often rainless for weeks, produce as bounteous and as 
sure a crop as twelve to eighteen inches, is impervious 
to fact or reason. He might as sensibly maintain 
that you could draw as long and as heavily against 
a deposit in bank of $500 as against one of $1,500. 

12. Finally, and as the sum of my convictions, we 
need more thought, more study, more intellect, in- 
fused into our Agriculture, with less blind devotion 
to a routine which, if ever judicious, has long since 
ceased to be so. The tillage which a pioneer, fight- 
ing single-handed and all but empty-handed with a 
dense forest of giant trees, which he can do no better 
than to cut down and burn, found indispensable 
among their stumps and roots, is not adapted to the 
altered circumstances of his grandchildren. If our 
most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours each 
per week from their incessant drudgery, and devote 
them to reading and reflection with regard to their 



SUMMING UP. 



noble calling, tlicy would live longer, live to bt 
purpose, and bequeath a better example, with mo. 
property, to their children. 



My self-imposed task is done. I undertook to tell 
What I Know of Farming through one brief essay for 
each week in 18Y0 ; and, in the face of multifarious 
and pressing duties, and in despite of a severe, pro- 
tracted illness, the work has been prosecuted to 
completion. Had I not kept ahead of it while in 
health, there were weeks when I must have left it 
unaccomplished, as I was too ill to write or even 
stand. 

I close with the avowal of my joyful trust that these 
essays, slight and imperfect as they are, will incite 
thousands of young farmers to feel a loftier pride in 
their calling and take a livelier interest in its improve- 
ment, and that many will be induced by them to read 
abler and better works on Agriculture and the 
sciences which minister to its efficiency and impel its 
progress toward a perfection which few as yet Lave 
even faintly foreseen. 



320 
tor 



INDEX. 



ACCOITfTTS— AccoTTiTTa i:r 'Farmtng-, 
cliap. XXXV, 207 ; the causes of pe- 
cuniary failure, 207; loss from waste 
of time, 207 ; the author has found 
all successful farmers rigid econ- 
omists of time, 20S; farmers urged 
to lieep a rigid account of how they 
dispone of tiaeir time, 208 ; keeping 
a diary recommended, 208; what it 
should contain, 209 ; accounts witli 
neighbors, 209; the farmer should 
keep an account of the expenses of 
his farm, and the receipts therefrom, 
209; importance of keeping an ac- 
count with the several fields and 
crops, 210; complication and uncer- 
tainty in account-keeping consid- 
ered, 210-T1 ; the advantage of keep- 
ing careful accounts, 211. 

AGRICULTURE. See Farming : books 
on practical, referred to, 30. 

ALABAMA, 50. 

ALDER, ^3. 

ALKALIS, as fertilizers. See Febtil- 

IZEES, COMMEECIAl.. 

ALLEGHANY RIDGE, 39. 

ALLEGHANIES, the, 45, 49, 79, 81, 156. 

ALPS, 75. 

ALPS, AUSTRIAlSr, 75 

AMERICA, 44, 170. 

AMBERST.K. H., 52. 

AMMONIA, 104, 306. 

AMJIONOOSUC, the river, 194. 

ANTELOPE, 278. 

APENNINES, 267. 

APPLE, the, ^3 118, 129. Fettit-Trees. 
The Apple, chap, xsix, 139 ; fruit- 
trees form a distinguishing feature 
of Northern farms and holdings, 139 ; 
"dnequaled in that respect else- 
where, 140 ; our country north of 
the Potomac excels, in Its supply of 
tree-fruits, all other portions of the 
earth's surface of equal area, 140; 
the Northern States admirably 
adapted to the apple and kmdred 
fruit-trees, 1 40; effects of such adapt- 
ability, 140; give an orchard the 
northern slope of a hill where possi- 
ble, 141 ; the one which blossoms 
latest, yields, on the average, most 
fruit, 141 ; storing ice to place un- 
der trees, not recommended, 141 ; 
importance of drainage, 141 ; some 
reasons for choosim? sloping ground 
for an apple-orchard, 141 ; the soil 
for such, 142 ; preparation of the 
soil, 142-3 ; treatment and care of 
the land devoted to an orchard, 
143-4 : Moke about Apple Trees, 



chap, xsv, 145; apple trees ar3 
planted too far apart, and allowed 
to grow too tall, 145; consequcnceG, 
14^-6 ; trees should be set diamond 
fashion, 146; pruning should be at- 
tended to annually, 146 ; sprout:! 
valueless, 147 ; the demands which 
apple-trees make on the soil should 
be supplied, 147 ; apple-trees in the 
township of Newcastle, Westches- 
ter, N. Y., 147; causes of their un- 
productiveness, 147-8; caterpillars 
and their ravages, 14S; duties of farm- 
ers and fruit grovv'ers, 149 ; the abun- 
dant apple-crop of 1870, 149; estab- 
lishes the capacity of our regions to 
bear Apples, 149, 101,232,291,294; the 
apple-cropof 1870,3,8 ahillustrationof 
tiae imperfect means of exchanging 
farm products, 297-8-9; loss to con- 
sumers and producers, 299-300. 

ARIZONA, 48. 

ARKANSAS, State of, 2=^,36; the river, 
73, 261 ; the upper river, 274. 

ARTESIAN AVELLS, 77, 277-8, 316. 

ASHES as fertilizers, 108-9, 127, 128; nsQ 
in preparing for an orchard, 142, 174, 
See also Fertilizers, Commer- 
cial. 

ATLANTIC, the coast, 156, 178; sea- 
board, 220; slope, 76, 157, 213. 

AUSTIN", 46. 

AUSTRALIA, 138, 200, 238. 

AUTUMN", 89, 97, 99, 116, 124, 173, 178, 179, 
192, 193, 202, 262. 

BABYLON, 266. 

BALSAM FIR, s8. 

BALTIMORE, 165. 

BARLEY, 24=;, 265, 

BARN, the use of stcEQ recommended 
in building a, 216. 

BATAVIA YAMS, 271. 

BATTENKILL, 75, 

BEANS, 210, 271, 29S. 

BEECH, 19, 53, 60, 287. 

BEEF, 37, 118, 220, 294. 

BEETS. See Roots, also 143,232, 264, 271. 

BELGIUM, 70, 238. 

BERRIES, 90. 

BIRCH, 60. 

BIRDS— Insects, Birds, chap, xxii, 
129 ; birds our best allies against in- 
sects, 129 ; the destruction of birds 
not the sole cause of insect ravages, 
130 ; birds should be protected and 
kindly treated, 132: associations 
should be formed to do so, 132 ; arti- 
ficial nests, 133; legal measures to 
protect birds, 133. 



323 



>24 



INDEX. 



BLACK ASH, 30, 
BLACKBEKKiES, 00, i^S. 
BLACK WALNUT;3T4: 
BLACKWELL'S ISLAND, 87. 
BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAms,8i. 
BOARD OF WORKS (London), 269. 
BOISSIERE, E. V.,DE, 253-4. 
BONES. See Commekcial Fektiliz- 

EiJS,alSO 118, 110,102,317. 

BONE-DUST, 174. 
BONES, flour of, 121. 
BONE FLOUR, 167. 
BONES, raw, 317. 
BOSTON, farm near, 15,289. 
BOTANY, 30. 
BUCKEYE, 260. 
BUCKWHEAT, 21, 189, 101,210. 
BUFFALO, 278. 
BUFFALO GRASS, 153, 
BURLINGTON, N. J,, 166. 
BUTTER,38, 164, 167. 
BRIDGES, 2S0. 
BRITISH ISLES, 178,245, 
BROCOLI,27i, 

CABBAGES, 264, 271, 296, 300. 

CACHE-LA-POUDRE, the river, 82, 262, 
263. 

CALIFORNIA, 26, 76, 80, 159, 181, 260. 

CANADA, 48, 165, 289 ; creek, 75. 

CANALS, 105. " 

CAROLINAS, the, 166, 315, 

CARROTS. See Roots, also 143, 271. 

CARSON, the river, 81, 83. 

CATTLE, I s ; Pasturiug, 19-20 ; Soilmg, 
20; treatment of herds of, in the 
Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, 20 ; 
rearing of, referred to, 35, 132, 150, 
157, 219, 220, 224, 20^. 

CATSKILLS,the,i7i: 

CENSUS : the Seventh, 150 ; the Eighth, 
150; the, of 1S70, 283. 

CHAMFLAIN, the, basin, 72 ; lake, 279. 

CHAPPAQUA,62. 

CHAUTAUQUA Co., N. Y., 287, 288. 

CHEESE, 38,^164, 167. 

CIIEMly TRY, HO, no, 196, 231. 

CHERRIES. Bee Fkuits, also 129, 139, 
294. 

CHESTER CO.,Penn., no. 

CHESTNUT, 54, 55, 60, 135, 136,215,314. 
bee also, Tkees. 

CHEYENNE, 262. 

CHICAGO, 164, 

CHICKENS, 295. >S'e(3Fowx,3 

CHLORINE, 114,235. 

CHLORIDE OF LIME, 128. 

CHOLERA, 268. 

CHURCHES, 250. 

CINCINNATI, 156. 

CLIMATES, American, for the finer 
fruits, 1^6. 

CLOVER, 120, 153, 167, 318. 

CLUBS. See Fakmees' Clubs. 

COAL, 109, 283. 

COLONIES, adyantage of settling in, 
23: the course to adopt in organis- 
ing one, 28; Union Colony, 262; its 
location, 262 ; the City of Greclcv, 
its nucleus, 262 ; irrigating canals of, 
262-4 ; fertility of the soil at, 264. 

COLONISTS, English, 171. 

COLORADO, i3i72o6,3i7; river, 46. 

CONGRESS, 46. 



C01«TECTICUT, 27, 171, 299; river, 194, 
279; valley of the. 317. 

COMO, lake, 75. 

COMMON SCHOOLS, 196-7, 

COMMUNISM: Differs radically from 
Co-operation, 248. 

CONCLUSIONS, General, Stimming- W 
CHAP. LII, 308 ; the facts set forth in 
the essays, 308 ; common misrepre- 
sentations, 308-9; object of the au- 
thor in writing these essays, 309; 
the propositions sought to be estab- 
lishad therein, 310; good farming 
must ever be a paying business, 310 ; 
thorough tillage advocated, 310; a 
location should be permanent, 310; 
the too great haste m incurring re- 
sponsibilities, 311 ; thegreedforland, 
310; common abuses in fencing and 
cattle-raising, 312-13; tree-cutting 
and tree-planting, 314-15; under- 
draining, 315 ; irrigation, 316; com- 
mercial fertilizers, 317-8-9; shallow 
culture, 319-20; the need for study 
and inquii-y, 320-21 ; concluding re- 
marks, 321. 

CO-OPERATION, reference to, in re- 
gard to wild lands, 24 ; Co-opesa- 
TiON IN Farming, chap. XLII, 248 ; 
Co-operation is the word of hope 
and cheer for labor, 248 ; its mean- 
ing, 248 ; diliers radically from com- 
munism, 248 ; tlic difficulties of a 
young farmer who migrates to Kan- 
sas, Minnesota or one of the Terri- 
tories, 248-9 ; the diiierent circum- 
stances consequent on settlement by 
co-operation, 250 ; advantages of co- 
operation not limited to colonizing 
distant tracts, 250 ; would benelit 
col'dred men, 2c,o-i ; fencing as an 
illustration of the loss consequent 
on want of co-operation, 251-2 ; how 
co-operation would remedy it, 252; 
further application of the system, 
252-3 ; Mr. E. V. de Boissiere's co- 
operative farming, 254-5. 

CORN, 20, 21, 22 ; growing of bread-corn 
eastward of the Hudson, 37,43, 67, 63, 
81, 86,88,92,94,99,103,107, 1 13, "114, 115, 
118, 147. Grain Growing— East and 
West— Chap. XX Vlli, 162 ; hoeing 
is of no use to Corn, 162 ; the best 
and cheapest way to cultivate corn^ 
162 ; the Holds of the IMississippi 
Valley are the most productive in 
the world, 163 ; the tillage, in some 
places, seemed susceptible of im- 
provement, 163- the West is the 
granary of the East, 163; a change 
imminent, 163 ; changes since twen- 
ty-three years ago when the author 
visited Illinois, 1O4 ; tlie course the 
West will ultimately adopt, 164 ; ex- 
haustion of the soil in New England 
and Eastern New York. 164 ; in the 
Genesee Valley, 365; Eastei*n Penn- 
sylvania profits by a provident sys- 
tem of husbandry, 165 ; the States 
this side of the Delaware will yet 
have to grow a large share of their 
breadstuff's, 165 ; can it be done with 
profit now, considered, also, if the 
East has wisely, so largely aban- 



INDEX. 



325 



doned grain-,oT0wiT3pr, 16^-9 ; the 

? laces not taken into account, 165 ; 
hG " Pine Barrens " of >iew" Jersey 
selected to Illustrate the profits of 
grain-growing iu the East, i58 ; their 
nature, 108 ; estimate of expenses 
thereon, 167; the product antici- 
pated, 167 ; the favorable conditions 
the cultivator would enjoy, 168 ; 
the money value of his crop, 168; 
great economy could be achieved 
in the cost of cultivating, 169 ; con- 
clusions, 169; also 177, 191, 192, 193, 
210, 228, 238, 242, 246-7, 264, 265, 271-2, 

2Q0. 

COT'rOX, 107, 200. 

COTTON-GKOWEES, Southern, 118. 
COTTONWOOD, 261. 
CREDIT, buying a farm on, 25. 
CROPS, Fall, 97. 
CaRRANTS, 129. 

DAIRTIKG-, 288, 

DANA'S MUCK ISIANUAL, 199. 

DELAWARE, the State of, 166; the 

river, 152, 16;. 
DENVER, 264, 27"/ ; Pacific Railroad, the, 

DEPOPULATION, (RURAL)— Ritkal 

DEPOPULATIOJf, chap. XLVIII, 286; 

the alleged decrease m the relative 
population of rural districts, 2S6 ; no 
increase since 18^9 in the number of 
farmers iu the State of New York, 
286 ; probable slight decrease in that 
of New England, 286 ; consolidating 
farms, 286 ; small farmers are selling 
out and migrating, 287; reasons 
therefor, 287 ; the changed character 
of the tillage, 287-8 : the general use 
of coal has reduced the demand for 
labor, 2S8; labor-saving implements, 
288-9 • the supposed degeneracy ot 
the New England Puritan stock, 289 ; 
the migration from New England, 
289-90; the assumption that Ameri- 
cans prefer other pursuits to farm- 
ing, 291 ; the rock and bog of New 
England form a discouraging imped- 
iment to agricultural progress, 290 ; 
compensation therefor, 291. 

DIARY, the keeping of one recom- 
mended, 31. 

DICKINSON, Andrew B., 10=^, 106. 

DISTRIBUTION" (of farm 'products) . 
See ExoHAifGE. 

DOCK, 232. 

DO(i WOOD, 314. 

DOGS : their depredations on sheep, 
203-4. 

DRAINING — Draining— My Own, 
CHAP. X, 62; the author's farm, 62; 
• situation of the land thereon requir- 
ing drainage, 62-3 : difliculties it pre- 
sented, 63 ; blunders, 60 ; how re- 
paired, 66; condition of the marsh 
before draining it, 64; how success 
Avas retarded, 67 ; evidences of suc- 
cess, 67 ; the crops of 1870 on the re- 
claimed land, 63; Draining Gener- 
ally, chap. XI, 69; general conclu- 
sions from the author's experience, 
69 ; extent of land to be drained, 69 : 
all swamp lands aad nsarly all or 



some other kinds must be drained to 
he v^ell tilled, 69 ; the many uses of 
under-drains, 69-70; no one should 
run into debt for draining, 70 : tile 
and stone drains, 71 ; draining by a 
Mole Plow, 72 ; general directions, 
72-3; covered mams recommeudea, 
73; the question of labor, 73 ; a case 
where tlie rudest surface drains 
would have changed bog into decent 
meadows, 132; the stone drains on 
the author's farm, 2141 the author's 
summing up on. 315. 
DROUTH-habitually shortens our Fall 
crops, 98 ; A Lesson of To-d ay(i87o) , 
chap. xxxii,i89; the popular view 
of hot and cold seasons, 189; the 
Summer of 1870, effects of the drouth, 
189-190; general character of each 
Summer, 190 ; proof that drouth need 
not be feared by tliose who farm pru- 
dently, 190 ; the author's observa- 
tions during a trip through Vv^arren 
Co., N. Y., 191-2; results to be at- 
tained there by right cultivation, 
192 ; the inn uiry : how are the people 
there to obtain fertilizers? 192; an- 
swered, 193 ; irrigation might be ap- 
plied profitably, 194. 

EARTH CLOSET, 123. . - - 

EASTERN STATES, pasturing in, 19. 

EASTERN STATES, the, 23, 25-6,37, 179, 
189, 204, 2m, 279,311. 

EDINBURGH, 269. 

EGGS, 294-5. 

EGYPT, 164, 167. 

ELECTRICITY, 285. 

ELK, 278. 

ELM, ^9. 

EMERSON, R. "W., 44. 

ENGLAND, 70, 89, 164 ; (Western) 170, 
178, 268. 

ERIE Co., Pa., 23. 

EUROPE, 35, 74, 156, 168, 170, 171, 178, 180, 
219,238. 

EXCHANGE : Exchange and Distri- 
bution, chap. li, 297 ; the machinery 
for disposing of surplus farm pro- 
ducts imperfect, 297 ; the abundant 
apple crop of 1870 as an illustration 
thereof, 297-8-9 ; apples should have 
been as common as bread or pota- 
toes, 298 ; the actual facts. 298 ; cause 
of both the waste and dearness of 
apples, 299-300; consequent loss to 
producers and consumers, 299-300; 
turnips as a further illustration, 300 : 
disappointments of inexperienced 
farmers, 300-1 ; hucksters and mid- 
dlemen, 301 : suggestion to have a 
railroad purchase and sell farm pro- 
ducts, 301-2 ; results to be expected, 
302 ; an objection answered, 302. 

EXHIBITIONS (AGPJCULTCRAL)— 
Agricultural Exhibitions, chap. 
xxxviii,22t ; author has attended at 
least fifty, 22^ ; concludes they were 
not what they might and should be, 
225 ; the reform must begin with the 
people, 22^ ; the lot of the public 
speaker, 22^-6 ; what is needed to 
render our "annual Fairs useful and 
instructive detailed, 22G ; each farmei- 



326 



INDEX. 



Bhovilcl hold himself bound to make 
som^i coatiibation tJ nis, 220; aa in- 
teresting and ruuumg commentary 
should be given, 227-b ; liberal pre- 
miums should De given for proii- 
ciency in farming, 228-9 ; need for im- 
provement in the character of the 
public spealcing, 229 ; counties should 
be canvassed to enrol exhibitors, 
230; all in a locality should feel a 
common interest in their fair, 230. 
EYE-SMART, 125. 

FABRICS, 200. 
FAIRS. See Exhibitioks. 
FALL, the, 126, 173, 174, 193, 318. 
FARMING — Will Farming Pay ? 
chap.i. 13; will it pay considered, 

13 ; the case of a man without capi- 
tal, 13; difflculties common to all 
pursuits, 13-4 : Astor referred to, 14 ; 
earning the lirst thousand dollars, 

14 ; instance of remarkable success 
in farming, near Boston, 15 ; case of 
a farmer in !N orthern Vermont, i s-6 ; 
Professor Mape's success, 14 ; profit- 
able return from a fruit farm on the 
Hudson, i=;-6 ; that shiftless farming 
don't pay admitted, 17 ; good farm- 
ing profitable, 17 ; farming not rec- 
ommended as a pursuit to every 
man, 17 ; it can never be dispensed 
with, 17 ; it is the first and most es- 
sential of human pursuits, 17 ; all are 
interested in having it honored and 
prosperous, 17 ; if unprofitable, it is 
from mismanagement, 17; the au- 
thor's aim in thtsc essays, 17. Good 
AKD Bad Htjsbaxdey, chap.ii. ib; 
good and bad farming considered, 
18 ; necessity master of us all, 18 ; 
dictates the line to follow in farm- 
ing, 18-9 ; application of the princi- 
ple to pasturing, 19-20; illustration 
of good farming, 20-1 ; excuses for 
waste insuificient, 21 ; truths on 
which good farming depend, 21 ; 
good crops invariably practicable, 
21-2 ; rarely fail to pay, 22 ; increas- 
ing productiveness of the soil the 
fairest single test, 22 ; where to farm 
considered, 23 ; experience of the 
author's father regarding the East 
and West, 23 ; circumstances quali- 
fying it, 23 ; the aifliculties of the 
pioneer's life, 23-4 ; purchase of an 
*' improvement " recommended in 
certain cases, 24 ; civilized places 
are to be preferred for settlement, 
24 ; co-operation may change mat- 
ters, 24 ; good fai-ming will pay 
everywhere, 2s; no one having a 
good farm advised to migrate, 215 ; 
money is made by farming near 
New York as fast as in the West, 
25; where migration is advised, 
and its advantages, 25 ; troubles 
attendant on buying on credit, 25 ; 
the West will grow more rapidiy 
than the East during the next twen- 
ty years, 26 ; the South invites im- 
migration, 25; great inducements 
oflcred, 20 ; combined eft'ort recom- 
mended, 26; good farming land 



cheapest in the United States, 27; 
an incident in Illinois farming, 27 ; 
counsel to intending purchasers, 27 ; 
land cheap in every State, 28 ; ad- 
vantages of settling in colonies, 28 ; 
the first steps toward doing so, 28 ; 
division of the lands, 28 ; laying out 
the town, 28 ; the progress it ought 
to make, 28 ; economy of capital iiC- 
complished, 28; Preparing to farm, 
chap. IV. 29; counsel intended for 
young men unaccustomed to farming 
29 ; patience recommended, 29 ; pen- 
alties of over haste, 29 ; value of ex- 
perience illustrated, 30 ; an inexpe- 
rienced young man advised to hire 
out, 30 ; procure books, 30 ; general 
counsel, 31 ; how the course advised 
diflers from running into debt, 31-2 ; 
experience and practice essential, 
32 ; circumstances where theoretical 
study is approved, 32 : qualifying re- 
marks, 32-3 ; he who has mastered 
farming is competent to buy a farm, 
33 ; exceptions, 33 ; a young man 
should not wait until he can buy a 
large farm, 33; twenty acres ample 
for $2,000 capital, 33 ; that extent is 
sufficient to test ^his aptitude, 33 ; 
Buying a Farm, chap. v. 34; it is 
better to buy good laud than poor, 
34 ; poor land can be turned to ac- 
count, 34; the smallest farm should 
have its strip of forest, 34 ; advantage 
of New England and countries of 
like surface over very fertile re- 
gions, 34 ; cannot be divested of for- 
est, 31; "Five Acres" or "Ten 
Acres '' not sufficient, 35 ; excep- 
tions, 35 ; genuine farms, the general 
want, 3s; the remark "he has too 
much laud," 3=;; some men specially 
adapted for large farms, 3s ; indi- 
vidual circumstances control, 3s ; 
counsel to a young man intent on 
buying a farm, 36; means of baying 
to be the main guide, 36 ; capital the 
true limit, 36 ; isiew England farms 
comparatively as cheap as Western, 

36 ; migration urged only for those 
who cannot buy farms in the Old 
States, 36 ; success of the butter- 
makers of Vermont, 36; also of 
New York cheese dairymen, 36 ; in- 
superable barriers in the East to ef- 
fective cultivation, 37 ; cultivation 
by steam must render large farms 
necessary, 37 ; grain growing not 
likely to be extended in the East, 
37 ; the West to be the source of 
supply of bread-corn to the East, 

37 ; "main considerations in buying 
land in the Eastern States, 37 ; m the 
West the case is different, 37 ; Hi^cial 
considerations, 38 ; make a penna- 
nent investment, 38: have confid- 
ence that industr}^ will be rewarded, 
38; Laying off a Farm, chap, vi, 
39 ; the surface and soil of a farm 
should be carefully studied, 39 ; mis- 
conception of the similarity of prai- 
rie farms, 39 ; a Northern farm S; - 
lected for illustration, 40; prepara- 
tory steps in laying off, 40 ; care nc- 



INDEX. 



327 



cessary, 40 ; a pasture to be first 
selected, 40 ; what it should be, 41 ; 
the one great error iu relation to 
this matter, 41 ; weeds inseparable 
from pasture, 42 ; treatment of a 
pasture, 42-^, ; it should have a rude 
shed, 43 ; fodder to be brought to 
cattle, 43 ; " too much " land and 
tree planting, so; farming in West- 
chester County, N. Y., i^i ; manage- 
ment of glass "lands a test of farm- 
ing, 152; The Faemkk's Calling: 
chap. XXXI, 183 ; merits of farmers 
as a class, 183 ; the author would 
have advised one of his sons if 
spared to attain manhood to become 
a good farmer, 183 : difficulties at- 
tending the farmer's calling, 184 ; 
author's reason for recommending 
farming as a vocation to his sou, 
184 ; no other business in which suc- 
cess is so nearly certain as it, 184-s ; 
farming conduces to a reverence for 
honesty and truth, 185-6; it is con- 
ducive to thorough manliness of 
character, 186-7 ; advantages the 
farmer enjoys in that respect over 

§ arsons in other pursuits, 187; iuci- 
ents of the author's experience as 
a journalist in this regard, 187-8 ; in- 
dependent position of the true farm- 
er, 188 ; dilnculties a young farmer 
encounters as a pioneer, 248-9 ; con- 
siderably obviated by co-operation, 
250 ; co-operation admits of wider 
application, 250-1 ; fencing as an 
illustration of the want of co-opera- 
tion, 251-2; wide adaptability of co- 
operation, 2c,2-3 ; Mr. E. V. ae Bois- 
siere's co-operative farm, 253-4; farm- 
ing in Colorado, 265 ; mistaken calcu- 
lations of inexperienced farmers, 
299-300 ; summing up : the farmers's 
calling, 308 ; American farming , 309 ; 
good farming is and must ever be a 
paying business, 310 ; thorough till- 
age, 310; choosing a location, 311 ; 
prudtince enjoined, 311-2; the greed 
for land, 312-3 ; shallow culture, 319 ; 
need for study and inquiry, 320. 

FARMS : Large and small Farms, 
chap. XLix, 292 ; naked magnitude 
has fascination for most minds, 292 ; 
some men can farm a township, 292 , 
large farmers, 293 ; the opportunities 
and expectations of the small farm- 
er, 293 ; making money from small 
farms, 293-4 ; large farming can never 
enable us to dispense with smail 
farms, 294 ; evidence thereof, 294 : 
fruit culture, 294 ; the production of 
eggs and the rearing of fowls, 294; 
the inducements oflered to fowl- 
breeders, 295 ; this industry should 
commenditself to poor widows, 295; 
the growing of market vegetables, 
295 ; the proiits realized therein; 296 ; 
general conclusions, 296-7. 

FAK.MERS' CLUBS— Farmers' Clttbs, 
chap. XLiii, 254; farmers divide 
into two classes', 254 ; characteristics 
of those who do too little work, 255 ; 
the farmers who work too much, 
255 ; illustration thereof, 255 ; value 



of the clnb to them, 2^6 ; who should 
form the club, 2s5: its rules, 2^6-7 ; 
the chief end to be attained, 2^7 ; 
habits of observation and reflection, 
257; evidence of the need thereof, 
2^7 ; a genuine intererit in their voca- 
tion is needed by farmers, 257-a : 
false fancies to be removed, 2^8 ; the 
officers of the club, 258; grafts, 
plants or seeds for gratuitous dis- 
tribution, 2^8 ; an annual tlowcr 
show, 259; an exhibition of Iruits, 
259 ; the organization of a farmers' 
club is the chief difficulty, 259 , how- 
removed, 2^9. 

FARM IMPLEMENTS— Farm Imple- 
ments, chap. XLi, 237 ; labor arduous 
enough without adding inefficient 
implements, 237; improvements 
therein during fifty years, 237 ; proofs 
thereof, 237 ; the inferior implements 
used in the greater part ot Europe, 
237-8 ; the claim of inventors or their 
agents to attention, 238-9 ; the stock 
ot an implement warehouse. 239; a 
co-operative plan will be found ne- 
cessary to secure the needful imple- 
ments, 240; reasons therefor, 240; 
greater inventions are certain to be 
made, 241 ; inventions for plowing, 
241. 

FENCES, Too-i. Fences AND Fencing, 
chap. xxxvix,2I9; excessive fencing 

general, 219 ; fences are commonly 
ispensed with in France and other 
parts of Europe, 219 ; drivers must 
there keep their cattle from injuring 
the wavside crops, 219; American 
railroads have largely superseded 
cattle-driving, 220 ; fresh meat will 
ultimately come from the Prairies, 
in refrigerating cars, 220 ; owners of 
animals should be responsible for 
their care, 220-221 ; fencing bears 
with special severity on the pioneer, 
221 ; fences, where necessary, are a 
deplorable necessity, 221 ; obstacles 
to introducing ditches and hedges, 
221-2 ; wire fences, 222 ; stone walls, 
222 ; rail fences, 222-3 ! posts and 
boards are the cheapest material for 
fences, 223; Red Cedar posts, 223; 
Locust posts, 223; posts set top-end 
down last longest, 224 ; general con- 
clusions, 224; forms one of the 
pioneer's many trials, 2m ; it is dif- 
ferent, but not better, with settlers 
on broad prairies, 251 ; co-operation 
would secure an immense economy 
in, 252, 287 ; should be scrutinized in 
winter, 306 ; most American firms 
east of the Roanoke and Wabash 
have too many fences, 313. 
FERTILIZERS, Commercial. Commer- 
cial Fertilizers— Gypsum, chai». 
XVII, 102 ; Gj-psum might be gen- 
erally applied to cultivated land, 
with'pront, 102; the case where it 
costs $10, or over, per ton, consid- 
ered, 402 ; it should be used in all 
stables and yards, 102 ; on meadows 
and pastures, 102 ; time and mode of 
application, 103 ; horo Gypsum impels 
and iuvigorates vegetaole growth, 



328 



INDEX. 



referred to, 103 ; its value prac- 
~ tically demonstrated in and around 
Paris, 303-4 : the nature of Gyp- 
tum, 104 ; the chemists' theory of it, 
104 ; its actual effect assumed as the 
basis 01 these remarks, 104 ; Gypsum 
ought to be extensively applied to 
pastures and slopes, 104-s ; a farmer's 
observations on its effects, los; it 
may be easily procured, 10s ; its trial 
requested, io^-6 , soils can be im- 
proved by means of calcined clay, 
106: a successful trial thereof, 106. 
Alkalis. . . .Salt — Ashes — Lime, 
CHAP. XVII, 107 ; all our country's 
surface might he improved by .he 
■use of suitable fertilizers, 107 , not 
many acres but might be made more 
fertile bv their use, 107 ; compara- 
tive exhaustion of the soil soon ren- 
ders them necessary, 107-8 ; the good 
farmer's inquiry on the subject, 108 ; 
the state of each soil respectively, 
the true guide in using fertilizers, 
108. allialiue substances might be 
universally applied with prolit, 108; 
the use of ashes considered, 108-9 ; 
JMarls of Kew Jersey, log ; Salt, log ; 
Potash, 109; the author's trial of, 
109-10; Lime as a fertilizer, no; care- 
ful tests of the value of Alkalis sug- 
gested, iio-ii. Soil and Fektil- 
IZEES, CHAP. XIX, 112 ; the farmer a 
manufacturer, 112 ; the opinion that 
some lands are naturally rich 
enough, 112; the great wheat pro- 
duct at the Salt Lake City Plain, 112 ; 
the author's experience regarding 
the imperfect manuring of land, 113 ; 
more manure and less seed should 
be applied by most farmers, 113 : the 
richest soils deteriorate after suc- 
cessive crops, 14: Nature's law of 
Inflexible exaction, 114; rich soil 
from the West exhibited at the IS. Y. 
Farmers' Club, 114; chemical an- 
alysis made of same, 114 ; Professor 
Mapes' remark thereon, 114: the 
mistake of fertilizmg poor lands 
only, 115; better to produce the 
sanie quantity of Corn from a small 
than a large area in certain cases, 
115; barn-yard manure, and its use, 
1 1 s-6 ; no farmer ever impoverished 
by making and using manure of his 
own manufacture, 117; Lime has 
been used without advantage, 
iii; reasons therefor, m ; adulter- 
ation of Lime, in ; farmers advised 
to be discriminating, in; experi- 
ment recommended where therein 
doubt. III. Bones— PHosPHATffis— 
Guano, chap. XX, 118; wasteful 
outlay for fertilizers, 118; fertilizers 
needed and used i;r Westchester Co., 
N. Y., n8; where not needed, 119: 
unprolitable use of Guano, 120; ex- 
ceptions to the general rule, 120 ; 
the other fertilizers, 120; author's 
trial of Guano, 121 ; not of general ap- 
plication, 121 ; experiments and 
careful observation recommended, 
122; results that may be expected, 
123 ; the earth closet, 123 ; miport- 



ance of it and kindred devices, 12? : 
oyster-sliell lime is the best, 128 ; the 
fertilizers to be used in preparing 
for an orchard, 142-3 , treatment of 
swamp muck for potatoes, 173 ; fer- 
tilizers for potatoes when muck 
cannot be had, 173-4; supposed in- 
quiry of tlie people of Warren 
Co., ]Sr. r., "How shall we obtain 
fertilizers?" 192; answered, 193 ; a 
Maine essayist on sourness 01 the soil 
and its remedy, 232-3 ; necessity lor 
scientific knowledge on the effects 
of,232 ; importance of some standard 
to go by in using, 234-^ ; the digging 
and drawing of clay as winter work, 
30J ; value ot clay for grass land, ^ub , 
procuring commercial fertilizers", as 
winter work, ^o6. 
FRUIT : a profftable fruit farm on the 
Hudson, 14; culture ot, 3^, 37, 107 ; 
ravages of insects on fruits, 129-30. 
Peaches — Peaes — Cheei;ies — 
GfvApes, CHAP. XXVII, is6; adapt- 
ability of American climates as re- 
gards fruit-gr owing, 1S7; why the 
climates of some sections are un- 
favorable for the most valued tree 
fruits, m6-7 ; author's personal ob- 
servations, m7 ; difflculties attend- 
ing the growing of the liner fruits, 
m8; counsel thereon lo farmers 
mainly engaged in the production 
of grain and cattle, it;7-8, grape- 
growing, 159 ; the mistake of neglect- 
ing vine3,"i59; experiment recom- 
mended, 159 ; necessary precautions, 
160; the course recommended to a 
farmer who proposes to grow pears, 
peaches, and quinces, 160-1, 168, 228, 
232, 259 ; the descriptions of fruit 
growri by small farmers, 294 ; fruit 
culture would decline should small 
farms be generally absorbed into 
larger, 294 ; treatment of fruit-trees 
in winter, 307. 

GAMMA GRASS, 261. 

GARDA, Lake, 7^. 

GENESEE, Valley of the, 163, 16=;, 292. 

GEOLOGY, 30, 190,231. 

GERMANY, 289. 

GRAIN, 22, 35, 40, 107, no, 118, 125, 126, 
132, 157, 167, 169, 186, 200, 206, 228, 235, 
239, 264, 266; 291, 293, 294, 296. See also, 

^ COEN. 

GiiAPES, 16, 59, 140, 226. 294. See also 

Feuits. 
GREAT BASIN, the. 138. 278, 317. 
GREAT BRITAIN, 179, 238. 
GRASS, 22, 40, 43, 67, 68, 91;, 107, no, 121, 

m2-3, 191, 232, 238, 239, 264. See also 

PaSTUEING AND HaY. 

GBEELEY, Horace — Arrival in New 

York, i3-t : own experience of the 
difflculties of securing a good start 
in life, 14; remark of his father to, 
on migration toAvard the West, 23; 
own evidence of the value of ex- 
perience, 30 ; is descended from 
several generations of tree- cutters, 
44; engaged for three years in land 
clearing, 4.1 ; reference to Amheret, 
N. H., liis birtliplace, 52 ; dcsci-iptioQ 



INDEX. 



of hi3 faiTQ, 62 ; drainage thereof, 
63-8 ; observalious iu Italy, 74-6 ; ex- 
periments in irrigation. 76-7 ; observ- 
ations in "Virginia, bo ; experience of 
the plowinj^ of his plut in Kew York 
city, 8^-S; tries deep plowing,b8; plow- 
ins of the hill-sidfs on his farm, 94; 
benciits thereof, 94 ; judges that the 
gravelly hill-sides of his farm would 
repay a'pplying 200 tons per acre of 
pure clay, loti; experience of guano, 
121; rais'ing locust from seed, 134; 
hay product of his farm, im ; helps 
in haymaking from swamps, ma ; 
hoed corn in his boyhood, 162 ; ob- 
servations on the cornfields of the 
JJissis;sippi valley, 163; observations 
at Chicago tAventy-three years ago, 
164; finds potatoes less prolilie on 
his farm than in Xew Hampshire, 
173; fpeaks as ajournalist of the 
diilerence iu popular estimation 
between the journalist's and farm- 
er's calling, 1S7 ; observations iu 
AVarren county, N. Y., 191 ; the stone 
wall on his farm, 2:8; experience of 
agricultural exhibitions, 22s ; the 
piovring on his f.;rm, 281 ; mentions 
the sale of his apples as an illustra- 
tion of the imperfect means of ex- 
changing farm products, 298. 

GEEELliV, the city of, 262. 

GUANO, 116, 120, 121, 192, 318. 

GULF STKEAM, 178. 

GYPSU:\r, 120, 121, 122, i7_i, 23->„3i7,3i8. See 

also 1) EKTUrlZEES, COilMEKCIAIi. 

HAELEM EAILEOAD, 62, 

HAWK, the, 132. 

HAY, 20, 68, 78, , 9^, 119, 122, i4;7. 
Hat and Haymaking, chap, xxvi, 
mo; importance of the grass crop, 
1^0 ; the portion made into haj% i;o ; 
its quantity, 150 ; the product and 
quality should be better, i^^i; au- 
thor's experience, isi ; the manage- 
ment of grass lands is a criterion 
of farming, 152 ; haymaking in Nev/ 
England Ufty years ago, 1^2; too 
little grass-seed is now used, 1^,1; 
too little discrimination used in 
sowing grass seeds, m3; the varie- 
ty of good grasses will be increased, 
1^3; grass is cut in the average too 
late, i=;3; consequences, 1-3-S4; the 

glea that our farmers are ' short- 
anded in the summer harvest, m4; 
treatment of grass when cut, 1^4 ; 
the author's anticipation of how 
haymaking will yet be carried on, 
m^; the need for improvement in 
hV.ymaking insisted on. is^; ex- 
planation thereof, 155. Also'167, 180, 
191, 211, 235, 288, 291', 306. See also 

HAYflAKmG. See Hay. 
IIE.MLOCK, 19, 58, 60, 66, 223, 287, 314. 
HICKORY, 53. S4. 55. 59, i35. 13S. 215, 291, 

HIG'hWAYS, 249. 
HOES, 237. 
HOGS, 143. 
HOLLAND, 238. 
HOMESTEAD LAW 249. 



HOPS, 164. 

HuKSES, 132; carrots as food for, 182. 

HUDSON, the, 16 ; a fruit farmer on the, 
16 ; the valley of the, 16s ; banks of 
the upper, 191 ; the valley of the up- 
per, igj, 194, 317. 

HUiUBOLDT, the river, 81. 

HUMBOLDT, the, or Canada Creek, 75. 

HUNGARY, 164, 

ILLINOIS, State of, 37: Northern, 163, 
164: prairies of, 164, 246, 264, 2b9. 

INDIANA, 37, 163. . 

INSECTS— Insects— Btees, chap, xxii, 
129 ; the serious loss to farmers from 
insects, 129; birds our best allies, 
129; what good they can do, 130; 
ravages of insects not entirely due 
to the scarcity of birds, 130 ; degen- 
eracy of our plants largely causes 
their ravages, 130 ; C4ov. Packer ot 
Pennsylvania's observations there- 
on, 130-31 ; the case of wheat and 
other plants, 131 ; a war against in- 
sects must continue for a genera- 
tion, 131 ; the destruction ot birds, 
132 ; the measures to be adopted 
against insects, 132 ; birds should bo 
preserved, 132; associations should 
be formed tb do so, 132 ; artiiicial 
nests, 133 ; legal rat asures proposed, 
133; their ravages in Newcastle 
township, "Westchester, N. Y., 147-8 ; 
caterpillars, 148 • numerous from 
neglect, it8; duties of farmers and 
fruit growers, 140. 

INTELLECT (in Agriculture)— Intel. 
LECT IN AGEicuLTrKE, chap. xxxili, 
19s ; years of rugged manual labor 
essential to success in hewing a 
farm out of the forest, 195 ; value of 
edtication to the farmer, ir,6 ; our 
average common schools defective 
in not teaching geology and chem- 
istry, 196 ; the leading principles 
and facts of these sciences ought to 
constitute the reader of the highest 
class in the common schools, 196 ; 
counsel to the young farmer on 
agricultural books, 107 ; their value 
demonstrated, 193 ; a two-hundred 
acre farm will be found to give 
ample scope, 100 ; instructions re- 
garding particular books, 199 ; men 
of the strongest minds and best 
abilities vciil be attracted to farm- 
ing so fast and so far as it becomes 
intellectual, 100. 

INTEREST, relatively high in this 
country, 202. 

IOWA, 27,^163, 164, 168. 

IRELAND, 170, 17;, 289. 

IRRIC4AT10N — Inr.iGATioN — Means 
and Ends, chap, xii, 74 ; need of 
Avc'.ter for crops not often kept in 
view, 74 ; the author's observations 
in Lombardy (Italy), 74-^ ; the At- 
Ip.ntic Slope and irrigation, 76 ; au- 
thor's experience in irrigation, 76-7; 
results, 78; irrigation of New Eng- 
land farms, 78 ; advantages that 
would result therefrom, 78. Possi- 
EiLiTiKS OP InniOATiON, chap. xi:i, 
"0 ; natural facilities for irrigation 



330 



INDEX. 



general, 79 ; artesian ■wells on the 
prairies. 79; weiiS in Caiiloruia, fee ; 
water as a fertilizer, 80 ; crops in 
Virginia sufiering from want of ir- 
rigation, 80-1 ; counsel to farmers on 
irrigation, 81-2 ; great profits to be 
realized by irrigation, 02-3 ; need of 
irrigation in the Eastern and ISiid- 
dle States considered, 83 ; the prai- 
rie States after 1900, 83; common 
objections to irrigation, 8 1 ; it mnst 
become gejieral, 247 ; weils will be 
sunk for the purpose, 247 ; a steam 
locomotive for the pirrpi se referied 
to, 247 ; irrigation will become gen- 
eral, 247 ; Western lEKiGATioisr, 
chap, xliv, 260; irrigation is prac- 
ticable everj'whcre, 260 ; the por- 
tion of our country which cannot 
be cultivated without irrigation, 
260 ; its extent. 260 ; its clim;;te, 260; 
it is spoken of as desert, 201 ; the 
readiest means of irrigating the 
plains, 261 ; their extent, 201 ; the 
North and South Platte rivers, 261 ; 
Union Colony, 262; its location, 262; 
location of Greeley, 3»32 ; the first 
irrigating canal of Union Colony, 
262 ; branches and ditches there- 
from, 262-3; liow the water is de- 
flected to it, 263; the larger and 
longer canai, 263; doubts at fiist 
entertained respecting the capaci- 
ties of the soil, 264; proved base- 
less, 264; products of the soil, 264; 
the cost of irrigation is not in ex- 
cess of cultivating without it, 264 ; 
demonstration thereof, 26^ ; it 
would pay to expend gioperac're for 
irrigating New England grass lands, 
260. Moke op Iriugation, chap, 
xlvi, 274 ; irrigation of places bor- 
dered Toy streams referred to, 274; 
the facilities the Platte offers for 
irrigation, 274-^; results that may 
be attained, 27^; the Plains, 275; 
obstacles to their cultivation, 27S-0; 
the change that will be yet efl'ecfed, 
276 ; how the plains will be irrigated , 
276-7; artesian wells, 277-8; the co- 
operation of railroad companies 
anticipated, 278; rain increases as 
settlements are multiplied, 278; the 
permanent character of the Plains, 
279; tracts needing irrigation in the 
P-ast, 279; summing up of the au- 
thor's views on, 315-6-7. 

lEOX, 242. 

ITALY (Northern), 171. 

KANSAS, 21;, 26, 167, 249, 261, 264, 289. 
KANSAS PACIFIC, the railroad, 262. 
KENNEBEC, the valley of the, 165; 

the river, 279. 
KENTUCKY, 5c. 
KIT CARSON, the, 277. 

LABOEEPS, Farm— Dearth of employ- 
ment for, in winter, a great and 
growing evil, 303. 

LAKES, the Northern, 16=;. 

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pcnn., no. 

LANCASHIRE (England), 76. 

LAND. See Faeming. 



LANDS, public, 46. 

LARD, 1C4. 

LIEBIG'S agricultural chemistry, icg. 

LIME, 104; as a fertilizer, ate FKiiTiLi- 

ZEES, COMMEECIAL;ate0,IO4, 110,111, 

120; oyster shell, 121, 122, 128; use in 

preparing for an orchard, 142, 143, 147, 

167, 174, 192,211, 232-3, 23=;, 306, 317,318. 
LOCUST, the, tree, 53, S4, 55, 60, 134, 21s, 

223,314. 
LOMBAEDY, 74, 75, 76. 
LONDON, 269. 
LONDONDERRY (Ireland), 171 ; New 

Hampshire, 171. 
LONG ISLAND, N. Y., 166, 251, 315; 

Sound. 172. 
LONG'S PEAK, 262. 
LORING, Dr. George B. (of Mass.), 103. 
LUMBErJNG— liow rocks in creeks are 

removed by a Imnberman, 217. 

MACHINES, agricultural, 225. 
MAGGlolv'E, Lake, 75. 
MAGNESIA, 2-^s. 
MAIDSTOISE (England), 89. 
MAINE, 1 2s, 171, 232. 
MANGANESE, in. 
MANGOLDS, 271. 
MANUFACTURES, 164, 243. 
MANURE, 95. 
MAPLE, 287. 

MAPES, Professor, 16, 8=;, 114, 128. 
MAEL, 109, 120, 122, 142, 167. See also 

Feetilizees, Commeecial. 
MARTINEAU, Miss, 187. 
MARYLAND, 166, 2si ; Eastern, 315. 

massachusetts," 171, 193. 
Mccormick, c, 86. 

MEATS, i-o, 164, 167,200,201 ; meat will 
be ultimately conveyed in refriger- 
ating cars, 220, 266. 

MECHANIC S, 243. 

]\IELON, 226. 

MEXICO, 172. 

MICHIGAN, State of, 163; Lake, 156. 

MIDDLE STATES, 139. 

MILK, 115, 167, 171. 

MILLS, 249, 2S0. 

MINNEHAHA, the, 285. 

MINNESOTA, 25, 26, 36, 3?, 163, 164, 168, 
206, 249, 289. 

MISSOURI, valley of the, 20 ; State of, 
168; the river, 260, 261, 279. 

MISSISSIPPI, valley of the upper, 20 ; 
38 ; valley of the, 45, 69, 103 ; the 
river, 163. 

MOLE PLOW, the, 72. 

MONMOUTH, N. .7., 166. 

MORMONS, tree planting bv, 46. 

MORTGAGE, bu\ iug land on, 31. 

MIDDLE STATllS, pasturing in, 19, 25, 
60, 142, 179. -"^4, 215. 

MUCK, 9=;, :o9, 116, 120; use in prepar- 
ing for an orchard, 142. Muck— 
How TO Utilize it, chap, xsi, 124; 
chemists will yet be able to deter- 
mine the value of all kinds, 124 ; use 
of muck profitable, 124; the au- 
thor's trial of it, 124 ; how swamp 
muck forms, 124-5 ; its vast extent, 
12:; ; little benefit derived from ap- 
plying it directly, 12^; the true 
course to adopt to secure good re- 
turns, 126-7 ; practical evidence of 



INDEX. 



331 



Its value, 127 ; the course to be 
adopted by farmers having few 
animals, 127-8 ; mixing salt with 
lime, 128, 147, 167 ; divcibity of opin- 
ion about. 233 ; as an illustration of 
the need for biore scientific knowl- 
edge, 23-^-4 ; as an illustration of 
winter work, 304; it is abundant 
and accessible, 304 ; proof thereof, 
305-6: value of muck, 30s ; where to 
procure, 318. 
MUTTON. Hee Sheep ; also, 200, 220. 

NAPOLEOX I, ^3, 292. 

NEVADA, 46, 76, 8-^, 260. 

NEWBUr.G, N. Y.,^a fruit farm above, 
on the Hudson, 16. 

NE^VC ASTLE (township) , Westchester 
Co., N. Y., 62, 147. 

liTEW ENGLAND, 25, 34. 36, 39, 45, 50, 
69, 78. 79, 139, 152, 163, 164, 165, 171, 
igo, 206, 214, 266, 279, 286, 287, 289, 290, 
291, 303. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE, 87, 140, 172, 237. 

NEW JEKSEY, 49, 85, 109, 165 ; South- 
ern, 166, 167, 16b, 169, 190, 251, 305,311;. 

NEW EIVEK, Va., 86. 

NEW YORK (city), 13, 60, 87, 129, .?6o. 

NEW YORK STATE, 37, 49 ; cheese 
dairymen of. 36.47, 62, 68, 79, 102, 131, 
140, 164 ; Western, 163 ; Eastern, 164, 
16^, 190,286, 200. 

NTACiARA, the falls of, 285. 

NINEVEH. 266. 

NITRATES. See Fektilizees. 

NITRATE OF SODA. 122. 

NORTHERN STATES, 48, 1^9, 140, 192, 
297. 

OATS, 67, 92, 94, 113, 118, 121, 143, 189, 191, 

210, 2s8, 24 1^, 264, 265. 
OHIO, State "of, 37, 163, 220 ; valley of 

the river, 38 ; the river, ^-5, 159. 
OLD STATES, the, 73, 249, 3^6. 
ONIONS, 191. 
ONTARIO, Lake, 156. 

PACIFIC STATES, 178. 

PACIFIC, the coast, 156 : valley, a 
broad, loi. 

PAC KER, Gov.William F., of Penn., 130. 

PARIS, 103. 

PASTURES— Pasturing will soon dis- 
appear in the Eastern and Middle 
States, 19; its pernicious cfl'ects, 19 ; 
soiling is preferable to pasturing, 20; 
a pasture should be the first field 
selected on a new farm, 40 ; where it 
should be placed. 41 ; misconceptions 
respectingindiscriminate pasturing, 
41; treatment of a pasture, 42-3; 
should have ashed, 43; appearance 
of pastures where there is bad farm- 
ing, 152 ; summing up of the author's 
views on pasturing, 313-4. See also 
Hay. 

PEACH-TREES. See Fruits, also 129, 
140. 161. 

PEARS. See Fefits, also 129, 139, 156, 
204. 

PEAS. 8q. 90, 271, 296. 
- PENNSYLVANIA, 23 ; Eastern, 165, 172, 
288. 

PEMIGEWASSET, the river, 75. 



PHILADELPHIA, i=;6, mo. 
PHOSPHATES. Se'e (.ommeeciaXiFee- 

TILIZERS, also 119, 121, 122, 192. 

PHOSi'HOKUS, 118, 119, 23^. 

PIP^I^s, S3. 

PiTCH-Pi:\E.3i4. 

PILGlilMS, the descendants of the, 289. 

PINE, 58, 223. 

PINE BARRENS, 166. 

PLAGUE, the, 268. 

PLAINS, the, 46, 101,261 ; Irrigation of, 
27=^-9, 316. 

PLASTER (Gypsum). See Commee- 
ciAL Fektilizees, also 80, 173,211. 
232, 233. 

PLA'iTE, the river, 82, 260, 261, 262 ; val- 
ley of the, 274. 

PLOWS, steel, 87. 

PLOVv'ING: Plowing, beep or shal- 
Low, CHAP, xiv, 87 ; the Deep Plow- 
ing of aW lands, not advocated, 8^; 
reasons therefor, 8^ ; instances 
where Deep Plowing was unadvis- 
able, 8^-6; the primitive plow, 8b; 
plowing in New Hampshire in the 
author's boyhood, 87; will Deep 
Plowing pay? 87; author's expe- 
rience of the plowing of a plat in 
New York city, 87-8; plows deeply 
with profit, 88-9 ; an English lar- 
mer's trial of Deep Plowing, 89-50 ; 
the imperative reasons for Deep 
Plowing, 90. Plowing— Good axd 
Bad, chap, xv, 91 ; misconceptions 
regarding Deep Plowing, 91 ; the 
right conditions for Deep Plowing, 
91 ; case of a farmer of the old 
school cited, 91-2; how Deep Plow- 
ing will prove profitable to him, 
92-3; how he should proceed, 92-3 ; 
subsoiling hill-sides, 94 ; author's 
own experience, 94 ; the revolution 
that steam-plov'ing will cause, 9s ; 
plowing of Grass land considered, 
0; ; treatment of Gras-s land that has 
been plowed, 95; plovv^iug of a poor 
man's rugged sterile farm, 97-0 ; 
Fall-plowing, 99-100 ; fences impede 
plowing, 100 ; favored lot of tho 
squatter on the prairie in regard to 
plowing, loi ; the plows of sixty 
years ago, 237; thenloAv susedinthe 
greater part of Europe, 238; im- 
provement in plowing inevitable, 
241 ; the improved system Avould bo 
adopted in the West, 241 ; steam 
plows and their inventors, 243 ; at 
work in Great Britain, 243-4 ; the 
locomotive that is needed for steam- 
plowing, 244; losses fiom want of 
such, 244-=,; necessity for greater 
rapidity in plowing demonstrated, 
246; aclvice of a German observ<r 
on plowing for ( orn, 24t-7 ; author's 
experience of the cost and delcy of 
plowing, 281-2; not half so much or 
so thorough plowing done as theic 
should be, 282 ; the impeiiect means 
of plowing, 282; steam-plowing in 
England, 283-4-s ; application of the 
facts to this country, 284. See also 
Steam. 

PLUM-TREES. See Fetjits, also 129, 
139. 294. 



332 



INDEX. 



PO, the river, 74-5. 

PORK, 37, 99, 14-i, 186, 191, 220, 238, 291. 

POTASH. See Feetilizees, Commee- 
ciAL, also 109. 

POTATOES, 88, 09. EscTJLEXT EooTS— 
PoTAT03:s, CHAP, xxix, 170; their 
productiveness, 170 ; cultivated uni- 
versally in Europe, 170; they alone 
form part of the every-day food of 
prince and peasant, 170 ; the poor of 
New England depended on them 
when the grain crop was cut short, 
171 ; formed part of the regular sup- 
per in farmers' homes, 171 • the his- 
tory of the Potato, 171 ; it is essen- 
tially a mountainous plant, 172 ; it 
mayhave grown wild on the sides 
of "the great chain traversing i^pan- 
ish America, 172; everything there 
congenial to it, 172 ; results attained 
by the author in growing potatoes, 
172 ; conditions which insure a good 
crop, 172-3 ; swamp muck treated as 
described, malies an excellent fer- 
tilizer for, 173 ; liow to act where 
Bach is not tol^e had, 173-4 ; instruc- 
tions to a farmer having a poor, 
worn-out field of sandy loam', 174; 
objections thereto considered, 174-=; ; 
the potato blight, 17S-6; the kind of 
seed to plant, 176; drills are prefer- 
able, in the author's judgment, 
176-7; prcparatloii of the soil. 177; 
varietiL'S considered, 177; growing 
from tubers tends to degeneracy, 
177: tlie originator of a valuable new 
potato entitled to a recompense,i77: 
also, 189, 26.1, 296. 

POTOMAG*^ river, the, 53, 73, 140, 159; 
valley of the, 317. 

PORTUGAL, 237. 

POWER— Undeveloped Sotjkces of 
Power, chap, xlvii, 280; the farm- 
er's sources and command of power 
less than the manufacturer's, 280 ; 
both have the same opportunities, 
280 ; author's experience of the de- 
lay and cost of plowing, 281-2 : fur- 
ther illustrations of the imperfect 
means of ]>lowing. 282 ; steam plow- 
ing in England, 282-3-4; steam not 
commended as a source of power to 
the farmer, 284 ; reasons therefor, 
284 ; wind as a source of power. 
284-5 ; the further anticipated 
sources, 285; the triumphs of the 
future, 28=; 

PRAIRIE, 24 : prairies, the, of the West, 
213 ; the, 261. 

PRAmiE STATES, 46, 83. 

PRUNING, 146. 

PUBLIC LANDS, 24, 46. 

PURSLEY, 125. 

QUINCES. ^SeeFETJiTS. 

RAG-WEED, I2';. 

RAILROADS, their influence on the 
progress of the West, 26, 10^ : sug- 
gestions to have one act as factor of 
tarm products, qoT-2. 

RALEIGH, Sir Walter, 171. 

" RANCHING," 2Q2, 

RASPBERRIES, 90. 



REAPERS, American, 245. 

RED CEDAR, 58, 157, 223. 

RED OAK, i9,j3, 60. 

republic; AN, valleys of the, 274. 

ROADS, 2^0. 

ROBINSON. SOLON, on fencing, 219. 

ROCK. AVcSton-k. 

ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 206, 261, 262, 274. 

ROJIFORD, England, 269-70. 

ROOTS, culture of, 3^, 43 ; all seek heat 
and moisture, 98, 126, 168, 206, 228, 242, 
26s ;— Roots — Turnips — Beets — 
Carrots, chap, xxx, 178; British 
and American climates compared as 
regards turnip culture, 178-9 ; tur- 
nips may be profitably grown in the 
United State's, 179; cattle breeders 
should each commence with one or 
two acres per annum, 179 ; the beet 
better adapted to our climate than 
the turnip, 180; its value to Europe 
as a sugar producer, 180 ; reasons for 
doubting that beet sugar will be- 
come an important American sta- 
ple, 180-1 ; beets will be extensively 
grown under a better system of till- 
age, 181 ; the author's experience of 
growing carrots, 181 ; reasons for 
not achieving eminent success 
therein, 181 ; the carrot ought to be 
extensively grown for horse feed- 
ing, 182 ; its value as such, 182 ; the 
oat degenerates in very hot, dry 
summers, 182 ; roots valuable to di- 
versify food, 182. 

RUTA BAGAS, 143. 

RYE, 21 ;_winter, 43, 92, 143, 191, 192. 

SAGE-BUSH, 261. 
ST. LOUIS, m6. 
SALEM, N.J:, t66. 

SALT. See Fertilizers, CoMMEit- 
ciAL ; also 109, 114, 122, 127, 12S, 143, 

147. 174- 

SALT LAKE, 46. 

SALT LAKE CITY, 112. 

SAVOYS, 271. 

SCHOOLS, 249, 2=;o. 

SCIENCE IJ? AGRICULTURE, 32; Sci- 
ence IN AOEICUIiTTJRE, Cliap. 

xxxix, 231 ; author disclaims being 
a scientific farmer, 231 ; men have 
raised good crops, who knew noth- 
ing of science, 231 ; science is the 
true base of efficient cultivation, 
231 ; the elements of every plant, 
231 ; necessity for scientific knowl- 
e'dge,232; author's personal experi- 
ence, 232; the assertion ot a Maine 
essayist, as an illustration of the 
need of scientific information, 233 ; 
the diversity of opinion as 10 the 
value of swamp muck, as a further 
illustration, 233-4 ; analysis of soils 
considered, 234; the necessity for 
some standard to go by in manuring 
land, 234 ; lUustration thereof, 234-t; ; 
science explains the impovcTish- 
nient of soils, 23^ ; author's testimo- 
ny on the value of science, from 
personal experience, 236 ; a compe- 
tence is reserved for young men 
fully conversant with agriculture, 
236. 



INDEX. 



333 



SCOTCH-rRISH, the, 171. 

SCOTLAND, 178, 269. 

SCRUB OAK, 314. 

8CTTHES, 2^9. 

SEASONS, Dry. ^'ee Dkouth. 

SEWAGE — Sewage, chap, xlv, 266; 
causes which doomed ancient em- 
pires to decay, 266 ; illustrations 
thereof, 266-7 ; the soil must receive 
back the elements taken from it 
267; obstacles thereto, 267; loca 
tion of ancient and modern cities 
267 ; inipsrative necessity for cleans 
ing great cities, 2D7-B ; meaning 
given to scM^age in England, 268 ; 
conditions necessary for its equable 
dltiusion over the soil, 268 ; applica- 
tion of sewage, 268; difficulties of 
utiliKiug it, 268-9 ; the progress 
made, 200 ; the measures taken to 
utilize sewage at 1 iomford, England, 
269 ; farm whei'eon it was used, and 
the results attained, 269-70-1-2-3 ; 
conclusion therefrom, 273-4. 

SHEEP— Sheep and Wool Growing, 
xxsiv, 200 ; production of wool in 
the United States insufficient, 200 ; 
they might profitably grow as much 
as they consume, 201 ; reasons there- 
for, 201 ; the increased price of mut- 
ton will make up for the reduction 
on wool, 201 ; sheep-growing in Eng- 
land as an illustration, 2oi; sheep 
soon make a return for the outlaj^ on 
them, 202 ; they successfully contend 
with bushes and briars, 20s ; more 
mutton should be consumed. 202-3 ; 
all farmers are not counseled to 
grow sheep, 203; depredations of 
dogs, 203-4: precautious against 
tliem, 204 ; the change in the, rela- 
tive values of mutton and wool, 204 ; 
the relative prices and p'-nduct the 
farmer must expect in the future, 
205 ; growing sheep for mutton near 
New York, 20s ; profit thereof, 20s ; 
sheep-growing is no experiment, 
20s; encouragement thereto, 20^-6 : 
sheep growing in Colorado and 
other Territories, and its future, 
206. 

SICILY, 267. 

SICKLE, 239. 

SILICA, 233. 

SlUITH, "VVltLiAM (Woolston, Eng.), 
283. 

SOCIETY, Agricultural, an, 228. See 

FAE3IEF.S' CLIJBS. 

SODA, 23^. 

SOILS, ahalrsis cf, ^%<,. 
SORGHUM, "stalks of, 43. 
SORt?EL, 125, 232. 

SOUTH, 2^ ; Inviting immigration, 26 ; 
the inducements she oners, 26-7-8, 

SOUTH" AJMERICA, 200, 206. 

SPAIN, 86, 237. 

SPANISH AMERICA, 172. 

SPRING, 67, 70, 73, 7:;, 76, 78, 81, 87, 88, 99, 
III, 126, 127, 134, 13=,, 136, 137, 140, 141, 
150, 168,171, 173.174. 193. 194. 202, 258, 
303, 319. 

SPRUCE, 223. 

SQUASH, 226, 264. 



STARK COUNTY, Ohio, no. 

STEAM IN AGRICULTURE, cultiva- 
tion by, 37 ; application of steam to 
plowing, 9;, Steam in^ Ageicttl- 
TUEE, chap, xli, 241 ; farmers have 
been slow in utilizing the natural 
forces arouud them, 241 ; evidence 
thereof, 242 ; steam as a som'ce of 
power is hardly a ccutury old, 242 ; 
the revolution it has eflected, 242 ; 
it will eflcTt still greater, 243; steam 
has contributeel very little to pre- 
paring the soil, 243; disappoint- 
inents of inventors of steam plows, 
243; steam plowing in Louisiana, 
243; steam plows iu Great Britain. 
243-4 ; the locomotive that is needed 
for steam plOAviug, 244 ; the saving 
it would eflect, 244-5; American 
reapers in England, their value ap- 
preciated, 24=; ; neecl for a machine 
to plow rapidly demonstrated, 246; 
recommendation of a German ob- 
server regarding plowing, 246 ; ir- 
rigation will become general, 247 ; 
the locomotive referred to above 
could be used for sinking wells, 
247 ; steam plowing in England, 283- 

STl^AM PLOWS . See Steam. 

STEEL, 242. 

STEUBEN COUNTY, N. Y., 10=;, 

STONE — Stone ow a Fabm, chap, 
xxxvi, 213; formation of the earth, 
212 : diffusion of stones over the 
surface, 213 ; these are sometimes a 
facility, but oftener an impediment 
to efficient agriculture, 213 ; no rock 
on the surface of the great prairies 
oi'the West, and a portion ot the val- 
leys andplainsof the Atlantic slope. 
213; advantages and disadvantages 
thereof to the pioneer, 2.4 ; less use 
for stone now than formerly, 214 ; 
the stone on Eastern fanis to bo 
yet utilized. 214-; ; verv stony laud 
should be planted with trees, 21^;; 
rough, unshapcn stones Avill be mole 
and more used for building, 21^-6 ; 
instructions for building a barn 
partly with stone concrete, 216: its 
advantages, 216 ; blasting out stone 
considered, 216-7; the mode a lum- 
berman employs to remove rocks in 
creeks, 217; the author's experience 
regarding the fencing of his farm, 
21S ; his stone walls, 218. 

STONES 249. 

STRAWBEliEIES, 16, ao. 

SUGAR, production of, from the hect, 
180 ; maple, 10, 314. 

SULPriUR, 104. 

SU-MMER,47, 59, 64, 67, 78, 83, 84, 85, 88, 59, 
103,124,126,130,1^4,173, 178, 189, 190, 
loi, 202, 260, 264, 270, 2fc8. 

SUPERPHOSPHATE, 174. 

SUSQUEHANNA, the, 279, 292 ; the val- 
ley of the, 317. 

SWAMP LAND : about =;o,ooo,ooo acres 
of, in the old States (including 
Maine), 125. See Deainixg. 

SWINE, 143. 

SWITZERLAND, 139 ; Northern, 171. 

SYCAMORE, 59. 



33i 



INDEX. 



TAMARACK, 22^. 

TERRITORIES,the, 206, 240. 

TEXAS, 43, 20^, 206 ; (Western), 260. 

TEXTILE FABRICS, 242. 

THEBP;S, 266. 

THISTLES, 42. 

THREAD, 200. 

TILLAGE : Tnop.OTiGH Tillage, chap, 
xvi, q6 •, rocky characttr of the au- 
thor's own fields, 96 ; clearmg ofl' 
stones profitable, 96; cultivating 
■wet lauds without draining: un- 
profitable, 97; the conrse a poor 
man with a mgged, sterile farm 
should adopt. 97 -, sliould reclaim 
one field each year. 97 ; shonld plow 
often, deeply and thoronghly, 98-9 ; 
reasons therefor. 90; Fall plowing. 
99; enriches the soil, 99-100 : fences, 
100 ; the favored lot of the squatter 
on the prairie, loi. See also, Plow- 
ing— Dbaixing — Fauming. 

THE TIMES (London), 282. 

TIMBER. See Trees. 

TIMOTHY GRASS, 38, ms. 

TOBACCO. 191. 

TO^iIATOES, 264,296. 

TRIBUNE, the. New York, 188. 

TURKEY, 86. 

TURNIPS. See Roots, also 178, 264, ^00. 

TREES: clearing off timber, 30: New 
England must always be well wood- 
ed, 34, 37. Trees— -Woodlanps — 
Foe'ests, chap. vii. 44: the author 
not sentimental regarding the de- 
structio7i of 44 ; utility the reason 
and end of vegetable growth, 44 ; 
profit the main consideration, 44 ; 
the beauty and grace of trees, 44 ; 
New England a favored section in 
regard to tree-growing, 45 ; disad- 
vantage of prairie land in that re- 
spect, 4^ ; trees once grew on " the 
I'lains,"46; trco-pl.vnting in Utah, 
and its climatic influence, 46 ; failure 
of Congress to pass a bill encourag- 
ing tree planting, 46; mistake of the 
New York dairv farmers in destrov- 
ing trees, 47 ; Spain, Iti^.ly. and por- 
tions of France snffering from the 
destruction of their forests, 47 ; 
other illustrations of improvidence, 
48. Growing Timber — Ttee- 
Planting, chap, viii, ^o•, propor- 
tion of a farm that should bo de- 
voted to trees, JO ; the question of 
"too much la' d" and tiee-grow- 
ing, so-i ; the case of Wcstchi ster 
cited, in regard to tree-growing, 
tT-2 ; its general application, S2 ; 
timber should be culled out rather 
than cut off, ^2 ; the case of Rpple 
trees applicable to all t -ci s, C2 ; some 
woodlands, the ciieapest property 
In the United States. ^,3 ^ auothe'r 
profitable field of labor, :;4 ; pla: 
thickly, ^4 ; a common objecti'^^ 
swcred, \i ; th ^ Far T\'est andiriC' 
planting, k^. Planting .- nd _ 
i.fG Treks, chap. ix. ^6 ; timber gen- 
eral on most farms, =;6 ; suggestions 
for locating tre s t6 ; trees once 
planted cost nothing for cultivn I ion, 
56 ; the soil is richer even after re- 



peated crops of wood, t;7 ; poor land 
improved bj^ growing tunber on it, 
^7 ; f-prings and streams will be ren- 
dered more equable and enduring 
bv tree-growing, ^7 : trees should be 
set on all hill-sides and ravines, 57 ; 
trees accumulate manure, s8 ; they 
can be placed so as to modify agree- 
ably the temperature of a farm. 58 : 
author's experience, 58 : trees on the 
crest of a hill improve the crops on 
the slope, ^9 ; trees may be placed 
with advantage on banks of rivers, 
frc, 59 ; a good tree grows as thrift- 
ily as a poor one, ^9 ; evidence there- 
of. 60 ; diversity profitable, 60 ; wood- 
lot should be thinned out, not 
cleared, 60; the future should be 
considered when cutting, 60: evi- 
dence thereof, 60 ; a plantation fur- 
nishes employment at all seasons, 
61 ; tree-growing will make springs 
appear, and cause rain , 61 97- About 
Trse-Planting, chap, xxlii, 134; 
author's experience in raising Lo- 
cust plants, n4 ; general counsel on 
the raising of locust, and most other 
trees, i-^s ; sowing seed and raising 
plants therefrom, i3s ; the raising of 
Chestnut, Hickory, White Oak, 13^-6 ; 
how a farmer, having a rugged, 
stony hill, should act, 136; profits 
v.'hich can be realized, 137 ; the util- 
ity of forests, 137-8 ; tree-planting as 
a field for adventurous young men 
138; how they should proceed, 138 
the great profits to be realized, 138 _ 
drouths may be expected as the 
country is more and more denuded 
of its forests, ino; how stony land 
may be advantageously used for 
tree-planting, 21:,; treatment of 
forests in winter, 307: summing up 
of the author's views on, 314. 

TREE-FRUITS. See Apples and 
Frttits. 

TREE-PLANTING. See Trees. 

UNION COLONY — Its location, 262 , 
the city of Greeley its nucleus, 262 ; 
irrigating cantils of T nion ( olony, 
262-4 ; doubts <'f the f.^rtllity of tlie 
soil of its location, 204 ; proved. 
groundless. 26 J. 

UNITED STATES, 27, 53 ; the annual 
hav crop of. mo, 151, 3m. 

UTAH, 46, 76, 181.' 

VEGETABLES, culture of, 35, 37, go, 
107, 168, 2r8, 261, 26^,266; the grow- 
ing of market, as a source of profit, 

VrNI. E, 74- 

VERMONT- A grazing farm in North- 
ern Vermont, 15, 25, 36, 48, no, i^g, 

172. 
VINES tf-^Vc^RUiT . 
VIMJIN*^, ^ 80, 86, 140, 166, igi, 237. 



WALNT^T', ^i, 6n. 13=;, T36. 
T/AfJ^FN COUNTY, N. Y., im, 102. 
WARING, on drninage, 72 : clemtnts of 
agrJcalLure bj , 199; on di'ainage, 

315- 



mDEX. 



335 



■WATEH, 231-2. Ses also Iebigation. 

WATEK MELONS, 300. 

WEBER, the river, 81. 

WEEDS, in pastures, 43. 

WEST, the, a farmer who migrated to, 
16 ; illustration of good fanning 
drawn from, 20, 23, 2^, 26, 27, 36, 37, 
41 ; as regards tree growing, 4s, 
55, 142 : tile granary of the East, 163, 
165, 168,169,179; the Fur, 203; the 
Great, 241, 291, 311. 

WESTCHESTEii COL^TT, N. T., 49 ; 
52, 62, 67, 118, 119, 12^. 

T\-ESTERN IRlilGATIOX. See Ikki- 

GATIOfi. 

WHEAT, 21, 22, 37, 92, 94, 112, 113, I2T, 
131, 162, 167, 169, 238, 242, 245, 264,265. 
Si'e also COEN. 

WHITE ASH, 291. 

WHITE BIRCH, 314. 

WHITE DAISY, 42. 

WHITE MAPLE, ^3. 

WHITE MOFNTAINS, N. H., 172, 

WHITE OAK, 54, 5=;, 13^;, 2m, 2;i, 314. 

WHITE PINE, 30, 48, 53, 54, 55, 215, 287, 

^\W'l'NEr, Eli, 86. 
WILLOW, 59. 



•WHSTDMn^L. 276-7. 

WINDS— Utilizing the winds for power, 

WINTER. 47, 59, 73, 81, 89, 113, 126, 135, 
140, 141, 1,0, 154, 156, 1^7, 171, 178, 179, 

IQ3, 206, 20q, 222, 2^8, 262, 263, 288, 298. 

WINTRIi. See AVoek, Wintee. 

WISCONSIN, 2s i=,9; Eastern, 163. 

WOOD ashes; 12b, 147, 173. 

WOOL, 164. See Sheep. 

WOOL GROWING. See Sheep. 

WORK, WINTER — Winter Woek, 
chap. 11. 303 ; dearth of winter 
work a great and growing evil, 303 ; 
consequences thereof, 303 ; it is 
quite a modern evil, 303-4; the hard- 
working farmer's claun to leisure. 
304 ; he errs in supposing that there 
is no winter work to be done, 304 ; 
the drawing and preparing of mlick 
as an illustration, 304-s-i) : the work 
to be substituted where muck is not 
to be had, 306; procuring commercial 
fertilizers;3o6; fences, 300; fruit trees, 
3o5; forestsr307; genei'ai counsel, 307. 

WY'OMING, 206. 

ZONE, temperate, 46 ; torrid, 46. 



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